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Recoflections 



,.,,0F A RUNAWAY BOY. 



1827— J903. 



BY JAMES OWENS. 



PITTSBURG, PA„ 1903. 



THE LIBRARY OF j 
CONGRESS. 


Two Copies Received 


AUG ! 1903 


Copyright Entry 
CLASS ^ XXcN«. 


vS" 1 8" ^ 

COPY B. 






COPYRIGHT J 903 By JAMES OWENS. 



Printed by 

Keystone Label Company. Limited 

Pittsburg, Pa. 







A FAVORITE POSITION OF THE AUTHOR. 



CHAPTER I. 

Introduction. 

This is the life story of a man who, in the seventy- 
six years he has traveled about the world, has proven 
the old saying that truth is stranger than fiction. Un- 
like the novelist, who draws upon a vivid imagination 
for his tales of adventure, the hero of this story has but 
to draw upon his memory of events he has seen — in 
most of which he has been an actor. The events 
herein recorded are mostly incidents jotted down in 
leisure moments the past few years for the amusement 
of children and grandchildren, and they may also find 
much to instruct them in the ways of the world fifty, 
and even seventy years ago. 

Ireland was my birthplace, and the date was April 
lo, 1827. That was in County Derry, near Curran. 
My father's people were of Welsh stock, and my 
mother Scotch, though both were born in Ireland. 
Shortly after my arrival in the family my parents 
moved to Entrem, where father took charge of John 
McChesney's Blichgreen. I was my father's name- 
sake and he was very fond of me. The first incident 
I can remember was one day I was sitting on his knee. 
He was smoking, and ashes fell from his pipe and 
burned my little body. He was sorely grieved, and 
threw away his pipe, declaring he would never smoke 
again. And he never did. 



6 Introduction. 

That was an incident that showed the strength of 
his character. When he took a line of action he kept 
to it to the end, and I believe that that strength of char- 
acter was my chief inheritance, and in fact it was my 
only inheritance, except life and health, for almost from 
the first I made my own way in the world. 

A little incident, wrong though it was, or would be 
for one who had reached years of discretion, occurred 
when I was about four years old, and it shows that, like 
my father, I went through with whatever I undertook. 
I took a fancy to a pigeon belonging to a neighbor 
named Brown, and I caught it and took it home. 
Mother did not know whose it was, and allowed me to 
keep it, thinking it was only a stray bird. But one day 
a little later, Mr. Brown was passing and saw the bird. 
He told my mother, who compelled me tO' carry the 
pigeon back, liberally using a willow switch on my back 
and legs until we met a neighbor woman, Mrs. McChes- 
ney, whose pleading in my behalf saved me further pun- 
ishment. 

The following Sunday, while my father and mother 
and the Browns were at church, I went to the Brown 
home, got the pigeon again, brought it home, killed it 
and hid it under a stone pile. It was missed of course, 
and they blamed me for having taken it. Mother 
often questioned me, but I never would admit that I 
knew anything about its disappearance. 

Whenever I saw Mr. Brown, I would imagine that 
he was thinking about that pigeon, but I was too stub- 
born to ever admit the crime and ask forgiveness. I 
felt that the whipping I got for taking the bird was 



Introduction. 7 

punishment enough for both offenses, and really the 
whipping was the motive for the second crime, and I am 
not a believer in the old adage, "Spare the rod and spoil 
the child," for many a boy has bden spoiled by too lib- 
eral application of the rod. 

Seventy years ago there were curious remedies for 
the small ills of childhood, and for the ills of our elders 
as well. Shortly after the incident of the pigeon — I 
almost said the tragedy of the pigeon — I was taken 
with whooping cough. It is not a very serious 
malady, but it is annoying, especially so for people liv- 
ing in the house when a whooping spell comes on the 
patient in the night. I must have been very noisy, 
for they took extreme measures to cure me. They 
brought a donkey into the front yard and carried me 
out of the house. Three times I was put around and 
under the donkey, then I was made to eat bread that 
had been first put into the mouth of the donkey. I 
soon got well, and the donkey got credit for being a 
great medicial agent, but I have never been thoroughly 
convinced that he was any more of a doctor than some 
of the donkeys who in this day put an M. D. at the end 
of their names and promise to cure everything from 
measles to consumption with some combination of 
drugs that promises to do everything, instead of help- 
ing nature to make you well and keep you strong by 
obeying her laws. 

It was not long after the aflfair of the donkey that 
the family moved to Belfast, where father took charge 
of Craig's weaving factory, on the Falls Road. We 
were only there a short while when father died. 



8 Introduction. 

I can remember little of the occurrences of the 
next two years. Mother kept her little family together 
and we were all happy and contented. Those two 
years were spent so pleasantly, and with so little to 
disturb the even tenor of our ways that there is little 
to record. One cannot make a story of happy domestic 
life, but must needs get out into the world, where there 
is less of happiness and content, and more of turmoil 
and strife. 

This I soon learned, for mother married about two 
years after my father's death. Her second husband 
was a retired naval officer, Capt. Hughey Drain, and 
his man-of-war ways did not suit me or my brothers 
and sisters. Capt. Drain was a valiant officer, and had 
been retired on pension, which he had undoubtedly 
earned in the service of his country, but I was too 
young then to look only at the glory his name brought 
the family, and I did not consider that his bluff and 
burly manner towards his step-children was excusable 
on the ground that he had fought in *'the King's navee." 
He was overbearing, and roug'h, and if there had been 
any such thing as a marlin spike around the house, I 
guess he would have used it on some of us, but that and 
the "cat o' nine tails" being out of his reach, he made 
things as unpleasant as possible with his tongue, and 
soon drove my sister and older brothers away from 
home. 

One day the captain asked if I had not taken a 
half crown from his pocket. With indignation, I told 
him I had not. He said nothing more then, but when 
I went to bed he searched my clothes. He found noth- 



The Runaway Boy. 9 

ing in my pockets but cherry stones, but that did not 
save me from a beating, and that was the beginning of 
the end of my life at home. 

All that day I nursed my wrath. In the evening I 
went to a blacksmith shop and secured a staple. This 
I drove into the side of the wall at the head of the 
stairs, and about six inches from the floor. Then I 
secured a rope and tied it from the staple to the balust- 
rade. I expected my step-father to trip over it when 
he went down stairs to lock the door for the night, and 
break his neck, which I considered but light punish- 
ment for the trashing he gave me, but my mother had 
gone to the store, and on her return she tripped and fell 
upstairs, instead of the captain falling down. 

I was not blamed with this attempt to murder the 
man whom I thought had committed the greatest pos- 
sible wrong against me, but a neighbor boy was sus- 
pected of having placed the rope there. 

That was the last night I ever spent under the roof 
oif my home in Ireland. I feared the Captain would 
find out who it was tried to trip him and I would be 
punished, so I got out of bed and left the house. 
O 

CHAPTER II. 

The Runaway Boy. 

In the darkness, of the night I crept out of the 
house. I did not know what time it was^ but with the 
fear of coming punishment in me, I fled as fast as my 



10 The Runaway Boy. 

little legs could carry me. Mother had said that past 
the graveyard where my father was laid to rest was 
the road to grandfather's home. I felt that if I could 
only go there I would find a haven of rest. I sped on 
down the road, and as I reached the Shinkle graveyard 
I was tired out. I tried to get through the gate to 
sleep on my father's grave. But the gate was locked. 
I rattled at the gate, then tried to get through the 
hedge, but at last I lay down on the grass beside the 
fence and went to sleep. No thought of the gruesome 
surroundings entered my mind. I was too tired for 
even the small fears of childhood, burdened by a heav- 
ier fear of the punishment that would be my portion if 
I returned home. 

The gray of dawn was just creeping over the trees 
when I awoke. I looked around, puzzled for a moment 
at my surroundings, then the whole injustice of my 
position came upon me once more, and I started up 
and ran as though I had seen the Captain coming after 
me. I sped on, over Davis mountain and down into 
the little green valley. For hours I walked and when I 
carne to the toll gate at Ben Water I could not pass, as 
I had no money and feared the questions of the toll 
keeper. I stood in the road, ready to weep from fa- 
tigue and hunger and fear. Suddenly the toll keeper 
came out. 

"Where are you going, laddie?" he asked. 

"I don't know," I told him. 

He soon had the whole story out of me. Taking 
me into his house he ordered something for me to eat. 
Fearing that he would take me back home, as soon 



The Runaway Boy. 11 

as he disappeared to return to the toll house I ran out 
the door and down the road. Fear was stronger than 
hunger. All that afternoon and far into the night I 
sped on. At last, weary and hungry, I again lay down 
on the soft, cool grass and slept. 

I was awakened by the sun shining in my eyes. I 
did not know how long I had slept. My legs were 
stiif from the long journey, and I could scarce bear the 
terrible pangs of hunger that were knawing at my 
stomach. Still I walked on, though more slowly than 
on the day before, more often stopping for a rest at 
the roadside. But at last my spirit broke. I crept up 
beside a thorne hedge and cried for my mother. 

As I was sitting there, with the tears running 
down my cheeks, a man came riding by on a pony. 

"So small, and in trouble already?" he said riding 
up close to the hedge and looking at me with a smile 
in which even I, young as I was, could see sympathy 
and friendliness. 

In answer tO' his questions, I told my little tragedy, 
holding back nothing. I was too thoroughly worn out 
to try to deceive him, willing even to accept return 
home to the bullying of Captain Drain, rather than, to 
pass further torture in an attempt to escape him. But 
I had found a friend. 

"It hardly seems possible for a lad so small to 
walk so far," he said. "But you need walk no further. 
Come home with me, and we will see what we can do 
for you." 

Then he lifted me up on the back of the pony, and 
in a little while he sat me down at his door, as meek 



12 The Runaway Boy. 

a little run away as ever was caught up. While I was 
satisfying a ravenous hunger, he told me his name was 
Samuel Stormy. He was the owner of a marble quar- 
ry and a plaster-of-paris works. After my dinner he 
laid me out a good suit of clothes, and soon after 1 
was escorted to the attic, to sleep in the bed with the 
serving man. 

Tired as I was, I was soon asleep, and not until 
morning did I awake. Even the fierce storm which 
broke upon the place during the night failed to 
awaken me, and I knew nothing of it till I opened my 
eyes to discover the sun shining above me, the roof 
gone, all the bedclothes gone, and the room stripped 
of everything but the bed with me lying upon it I 
looked out, and could see Mr. Stormy and a cr j vd of 
people in the meadow searching for something. 

I went down and stood in the doorway for a 
moment, then started towards them, and I made up 
my mind they must be crazy. Some of them started 
to run away, while Mr. Stormy came running toward 
me. 

*'We thought you were killed," he said, "and were 
looking for your dead body in the meadow, where the 
roof of the house was dropped by the wind." 

And naked as I was, he picked me up and carried 
me out among the superstitious ones to prove that I 
was flesh and blood and no ghost. 

That was the beginning of a happy life of two 
years at the home of Mr. Stormy. Little work did I 
do, scarcely enough to pay my friend for the clothes 
he bought me and the food I ate. Everything that a 



The Rtinaway Boy. 13 

son could expect was done for me, and the thought of 
my brothers and sisters and mother began to seem 
like a dream of the distant past. Mr. Stormy had ac- 
cepted my story of the terrible Captain who beat me, 
and did not even attempt to send me back. His heart 
was too kind to allow me to return to a home of cruel- 
ty, and he preferred to have me remain with him. 

Scarcely a cross word he gave me in two years. 
At the end of that time I had grown to be quite a 
large lad of nearly eight years. I thought I was then 
large enough to ride the horses and occasionally when 
Mr. Stormy was not around the stableman would put 
me on a quiet horse and give free rein to gallop up and 
down the road or across the fields. 

One day Mr. Stormy came into the barn as I was 
trying to get on one of the colts tied in the stall. He 
caught me by the scruff of the coat and dragged me 
out into the shed, where he began to whip me with a 
bunch of straw. I began to laugh and he became 
angry. He got a willow switch and gave me a genuine 
thrashing, though not severe, and when I began to 
cry he threw the switch away, talked to me awhile 
about the danger I was running in trying to ride the 
colts, and left me in the shed. 

I did not realize then how kind he was. He had 
not really hurt me, but had wounded my spirit. All 
that day I brooded over what I considered his injus- 
tice. In a moment I forgot all he had done for me in 
the two years from the time he had picked me up by 
the roadside, and although I had come to look upon 
him as a second father, always kind and considerate, 



14 I Find a New Home. 

all was blotted out in one real blow from his hand. 

That night, after all had gone to bed, I put on 
my best clothes, slipped out of the house and down the 
road, my only thought to get away and to get still 
further from the place where I still felt the terrible 
Captain was waiting for me with a strap in his hand, 
a grim and forbidding picture of vengeance. 

O 

CHAPTER III. 
I Find a New Home. 

My seond runaway was under less trying cir- 
cumstances. My friends at the Stormys had given me 
an occasional shilling or sixpence, and I was fairly 
wealthy, and also as well clothed, when I got up in 
the night and stole away. After walking all through 
the balance of the night, and just as the light of day 
began to appear in the east, I began to realize what I 
had left behind. But my pride would not allow me to 
go back and ask to be taken in again. So I kept 
walking on, until I came to a house where there were 
people stirring about. I went in and asked if I could 
get breakfast. I ate with the family, and proffered the 
good woman a shilling, but she declared I was too 
small to be paying for my meals. I insisted that I was 
no beggar, and we finally compromised on a sixpence, 
and I started on my way. 

I j<^.ers^€d long pleasantly enough all that day, oc- 
casionally being given a lift by a man with a cart, 



I Find a New Home. 15 

and when night came I asked for lodging at the first 
cottage that took my fancy. I was given a warm wel- 
come, a good supper, bed and breakfast, and this 
time I could not force my money on my host, but was 
sent on my way with as cheery a God-speed as could 
be accorded the most honored of guests. 

Now I thought I was far enough away to begin 
hunting a place to work. Everywhere I went, I asked 
for work, but there was little for a lad of eight to do, 
and time after time I was turned away. Late in the 
afternoon, I told my story to a man who had given me 
a lift in his cart. 

"Jimrnie McClatchy's is just the place for you," 
he said. "He's an old bachelor, and there's not a lad 
on the place. Go to him and tell him I sent you." 

I was given minute directions, and was set down 
on the road as near the McClatchy place as possible. 
Then bidding my new friend good-bye, I trudged on to 
the McClatchy farm, where I found just such a wel- 
come as he had promised. Tlie McClatchy family 
consisted of two men, James and his younger brother. 
Tommy, both old bachelors, and their mother. I had 
landed on my feet again, found as good a home as the 
one I had just deserted. 

While I had plenty of work at McClatchy's to earn 
my board and clothes and a little beside, I also had 
plenty of leisure time, and I soon became acquainted 
with all the boys in the neighborhood. We were all 
Irish lads to the core, full of the old nick, and to this 
day I have to laugh when I think of some of the 



16 I Find a New Home. 

pranks we used to play, though some of them were 
more boyish than humorous. 

Paddy McMullen was for a time the butt of our 
fun. He had a fat pig- which I had trained as a sad- 
dler, and I was wont to ride him every time I got an op- 
portunity — when Paddy was not looking. But one 
day when I was having my ride, the pig showed he 
had a mind of his own by running into Paddy's 
house, with me on him. Paddy was sitting by the fire, 
and the sight of his favorite pig being used as a 
saddle horse was too much for him. 

"Git out o' this, ye dirty thafe," he shouted, as 
he reached for the poker. 

I did my 'best to escape, but dodged in the wrong 
direction, and got the poker squarely on my head. 
Luckily it did me little harm, but it taught me that it 
would be best not to fool with Paddy, especially not 
take liberties with his pig. Thereafter when I wanted 
to take a ride, I was very careful to see that Paddy's 
door was closed so that I could not be rushed into 
trouble again. 

Next door to McClatchy's lived Adam Duncan, a 
wealthy man who bought port and flax in the country 
round and sent it to Belfast. He handled large sums 
of money, and all of his returns from Belfast had to 
be carried by a man, as there were no banks to handle 
such financial matters as there are now. Hughie Hen- 
derson was his messenger, and always when he re- 
turned in his cart from Belfast he had large sums with 
him. One day, as Hughie was driving out of Antrim, 
an old crippled man asked to be given a lift. 



I Find a New Home. 17 

"The boss doesn't allow me to take anybody in the 
cart," said Hughie. 

"Sure, an' ye wouldn't refuse an ole cripple?" the 
poor fellow pleaded. 

Finally Hughie agreed to give him a ride if he 
would get into the back of the cart and cover himself 
tip with the bags so no one would see him. So the 
cripple clambered in and did as Hughie told him. 

About five miles out, five policemen came out of 
Lord O' Neil's demesne, and one of them pointing a 
pistol at Hughie, they demanded his money. 

"You can't have it," said Hughie. 

The cripple peeking from under the bags saw one 
of them knock out Hughie's brains with a club, and 
another take the bills from his inside pocket. Then 
all five disappeared again within the shrubbery on 
the O'Neil estate. 

Just as the cripple had crawled from under the 
bags, Duncan came along, and seeing Hughie lying 
dead in the road, he accused the cripple of the murder. 

" 'Tis a sorry day," wailed the cripple, "I never 
touched him, but if ye drive back to town I can show 
you the men as did it." 

Back to town they hurried as fast as the horses 
could go, leaving poor Hughie's bleeding corpse lying 
in the grass by the road. They drove directly to the 
office of the Mayor, and the cripple told his story. The 
Mayor rang his bell and ordered that all the policemen 
be called in. A number of men appeared, but the mur- 
derers were not among them. 

"Are these all ye have?" asked the cripple. 



18 I Find a. New Home. 

''No," said the Mayor, ''there are a few more," 
and he ordered that the others be brought in. 

The cripple stood beside the Mayor, and as the 
culprits came through the door he pointed them out, 
one at a time. 

"There is the one that knocked out Hughie's 
brains," he said, "and there is the one that held the 
horses, and there is the one that took the money and 
put it in his coat pocket. The other two were with 
them." 

The Mayor immediately started an investigation. 
The money was found in their pockets, and all that 
the cripple said was found to be true. The trial was 
brief, and the men were promptly sentenced to be 
hanged. Justice traveled with rapid strides in those 
days, and the next day the murderers were hanged 
to five trees in Lord O'Neil's wood, where they had 
hidden till Hughie drove up. 

The bodies were left hanging in the wood for ten 
days as a warning to evil-doers. With a party from 
the neighborhood I went to see the bodies hanging 
among the trees. It took us a whole day to go there 
and back. The sight was terrible, and for weeks I 
could hardly think of anything else, and the sight of 
the four bodies dangling in the breeze would come be- 
fore me at all sorts of times, and make me shiver with 
dread. 



Jimmie MeMullin's Ghost. 19 

CHAPTER IV. 

Jimmie McMullin's Ghost. 

Jimmie McMuUin and his wife, Nancy, were the 
butt of many of the pranks of the lads of the neighbor- 
hood. Jimmie was a little inclined to drink and when 
drinking would fight with his wife. One night, when 
Jimmie was ripe ior sport, we boys hollowed out a 
turnip and filled it with flax. Then w€ lighted it 
and by holding it to the keyhole and blowing through 
it we soon had the house full of smoke. As soon as 
the smoke got thick, Jimmie and his wife began to 
fight. I was behind the jamb wall, and I carried 
Paddy McMullin's old rooster from which we had 
plucked all the feathers and which we had singed with 
straw. When the smoke got so thick they could not 
see me I put the rooster into the house, the boys 
stopped blowing in smoke, and we waited for develop- 
ments. 

Pretty soon the smoke began to rise to the ceil- 
ing, and Jimmie saw the rooster strutting across the 
floor. 

"It's the divil," he yelled, and ran for the door. 

I was in his way, and he fell over me. 

"There's another one of 'em," he shouted, and he 
jumped up and down the road as if pursued by a hun- 
dred devils. 

Nancy, left by herself, was scared almost to death. 
She fell on her knees and screamed at the top of her 
voice : 



20 Jimmie MioMuUin's Ghost. 

"Oh, Good Lord, don't take me. It's not me that 
wants to be taken." 

A little way down the street Jimmie came upon a 
crowd of men, and thus reinforced, he started back to 
put the devils to route. We boys had started home, 
and when we saw the crowd coming we hid in the road 
to let them pass. They were telling what they would 
do to the ghosts that were in Jimmie's house, and one 
of the boys laughed. Jimmie let out a yell you could 
have heard for a mile, and started back the way he 
had come, and all the other ghost fighters followed him 
as fast as their legs would carry them. 

The next night we boys went to call on Jimmie, 
and we were all sitting around listening to Jimmie's 
story of the ghosts, when Paddy, his brother, came in. 

"Jimmie, there's something going to happen 
around here," he said. "Last night when the ghosts 
were up to your place, one of them visited mine. He 
took all the feathers oflf my old rooster as clean as a 
whistle, and didn't leave a feather in the hen house." 

That upset the whole crowd of us, and we burst 
out laughing. Paddy thought we were laughing at 
him, and he ran us out of the house and down the 
street. 

I got my scare the following night. I was walk- 
ing down the lane, when I heard an awful rattle and 
clatter, and decided the devil was around this time for 
certain. With a scream of terror I started to run for 
the nearest house. It was Paddy McMullin's place. 
I never stopped to open the door, but burst it in and 
fell on the floor, white and faint with terror. I was 



Jimmie M<;Mullin's Ghost. 21 

just recovering enough to tell Jimmie, who happened 
to be there, what I had heard and what I thought I had 
seen, when Paddy came in dragging a huge log chain 
behind him. And that was my ghost. It was Jim- 
mie's turn now to have fun with me. 

There was a Spa woman in the neighborhood, 
and a night or two after the log chain event, Andy 
Ewing and I went to see her. She told Andy's for- 
tune, and his was so good I wanted mine told, also. I 
had no money, so I pawned my cap to get it. When 
I had "crossed her palm with silver," she told me I 
would get a wife worth her weight in gold. And 
that was once she told the truth, but it was many 
years later, and many thousands of miles away from 
Ireland that I found her. 

The lads in the McClatchy neighborhood seemed 
to run to the ghost idea for a time, and all our fun was 
making the superstitious people think they had seen 
the devil or some of his satelites. One night when 
William Johnson came home he saw a pumpkin head, 
which his son and I had made, setting on his fence 
post. When he saw the flaming eyes and blood red 
teeth and the terrible face staring at him he jumped 
on his horse and rode into town. He never came home 
till the next morning. 

The next night, Johnson was sitting in front of 
the fire place with a number of others at McClatchy's. 
His son and I climbed up on the roof and dropped 
horse-chestnuts down the chimney. Soon they got hot 
and exploded, throwing sparks in every direction. The 
people paid no attention to the first explosion, but soon 



22 Jimmie M<cMullin's Ghost. 

half a dozen came, one right after the other, and the 
crowd fled from the room in consternation, sure there 
were ghosts in the fireplace. 

Hugh Dempsey was another queer old character 
living near the McClatchy place. I would often go 
to visit him and listen to his queer talk. One after- 
noon when I was there a little pig was running 
through the house. As it went under the clock one 
of the weights fell on it and made it squeal. I told 
Hugh he ought to knock the devil out of the clock, and 
he did. He picked up the weight and threw it at the 
clock with all his force. When the weight hit the 
clock it began to strike. 

"You will strike back/' shouted Hugh, and he 
kept on stoning the clock till it quit striking because 
it was completely ruined. 

Old Dave McClatchy, an uncle of the McClatchys 
with whom I lived, resided on the farm. He died 
shortly after I came to live there, and of course they 
had a wake. Old Davy was so crooked physically 
that when they laid him out they had to put weights 
on his chest and knees to make him lie straight. All 
the people in the neighborhood came to the wake and 
the folks at home got supper for them. 

While they were eating supper, Ellen McClatchy 
sent me up to the room, where old Davy lay to snuflf 
the candles. When I opened the door I was surprised 
to see Davy sitting up in bed. 

"What have they been doing with Davy?" I 
shouted down the stairs to Ellen. "He's sitting up 
in bed." 



Jimmie MoMullin's Grhost. 23 

She came running up, and sure enough she found 
him sitting there as though he had become tired of 
lying down so long. 

She called some of the others, and wlien they saw 
him they ran out of the house and would not come 
back, declaring the old man's corpse was bewitched, 
but Tom McClatchy found that the weight had slipped 
off Davy's chest and the weight on his knees made his 
head rise. Tom fixed the weight again and old Davy 
lay down, never to rise again. 

"I don't see what you are all scared about," I told 
them. "I should think you would be glad Davy is 
alive again." 

A couple of nights later I was sleeping with Tom, 
as he promised to take me to the fair next day and 
wanted to be sure to get up in time to get an early 
start. Shortly after daylight Tom waked me up and 
told me to go down stairs and see what time it was. I 
got bewildered and got into Old Davy's room. In the 
dim light I thought I saw his ghost, and I began to 
scream. That awoke the whole house and the folks 
came running in with lighted candles. There in the 
corner stood a spinning wheel with the white flax on 
it, and that was what I thought was Davy's ghost. 

Although it was a little early to get up, it was 
still too late to go to bed and try to sleep.. So we soon 
had breakfast and Tom and I got an early start for 
the fair. Tom saw some fine looking butter, and de- 
cided to buy a roll of it. Then he sent me to h?s 
cousin's store with it. His cousin cut it in two, and 



24 Jimmie MoMuUin's Ghost. 

found that only the outside was butter, while the in- 
side was potatoes. 

When Tom was told how he had been sold, he in- 
vestigated, and found that the butter was made by 
Ann Pitt, who had a reputation in the country for 
making dirty butter, although it was always of excel- 
lent quality. 

One day she declared she would make some clean 
butter. So she took a bath and put on clean clothes 
and prepared to retrieve her reputation. She had the 
butter all churned and was working it out. She got 
upon a chair to reach the salt above the stove, when 
the chair slipped and she fell back into the butter bowl. 

"I'll never try to make clean butter again," she 
declared, and I guess she never did. 

After that as she walked along the streets the 
urchins would shout after her, "I'll never try to make 
clean butter again," and then she would chase them 
down the street. 

Shortly after this episode, Ann went to the sea- 
shore at Port Stewart, and there she found a man she 
liked better than she did her husband, and ran away 
with him to Scotland. Finally she came back home, 
but her husband refused to take her in. So she was 
sold in the market at Marfet, and her father bought her 
for half a crown. That was the way they divorced 
people in those days. 



My One Day In School. 25 

CHAPTER V. 
My One Day in School. 

When the fall days came and there was little work 
for me to do on the farm, Mrs. McClatchy decided I 
ought to go to school. I was then about 8 years old, 
and though I had learned to read a little I had never 
been in school. It won't take a very long chapter to 
tell all about my school days, because there were no 
school days, only one day, and hardly that. 

Mrs. McClatchy gave me a piece of turf, for we 
had to carry fuel with us if we wanted to share in the 
warmth of the fire. With my turf under my arm, I 
started off. The master sat me on one of the rear 
benches and when he called the first class out to re- 
cite, I picked up a slate and began to draw pictures. 
The master told me tO' stop, and I laid the slate down. 
When he wasn't looking, I picked it up again and he 
soon heard the scratching. He picked up his heavy 
rule and threw it at me, striking me on the ear, break- 
ing my ear drum. 

Though the blood was running from my mouth 
and ear, I jumped from my seat and taking the rule I 
threw it at him with all my strength. It struck him 
squarely on the forehead, knocking him down. I 
jumped on him and kicked him, and before he was 
able to get up, I ran from, the room. 

That was the end of my school days. Instead oi 
gaining an education I lost the hearing of one ear. 
When I went home, Mrs. McClatchy said she would 



26 My Oae Day In ^hool. 

not allow me to return to school, but would teach me 
.at home. And she did. Every day, as long as I stayed 
there she continued to give me instruction, and from 
iier I got the ground work. The balance of my edu- 
cation I have worked out myself at nights, getting 
books and reading, studying all my spare time. I shall 
never forget the kindness of Airs. McClatchy, and I 
wept bitterly one morning when I awoke and was told 
that she was dead. (I believe Mrs. McClatchy was the 
grandmother of James J. Corbett, the pugilist). 

Although my education was ''finished" that one 
day, I watched for a chance to get revenge on the 
schoolmaster. I did not succeed in revenging myself 
on him, but some time after this I met his son, about 
my own age, coming to Johnson's pasture to milk the 
cow. I watched for him to return, and when he came 
to McClatchy's lane I ran out and kicked his bucket of 
milk over, spilling it all. He tried to thrash me, but 
after a tustle I got the better of him, and gave him a 
beating which resulted in the loss of one of his eyes. 

This fight cost me the loss of another home, for 
I feared arrest, and being an orphan, I felt that I 
could not escape jail, though the boy's father had 
burst my ear drum, and the damage was about equal. 

So again I became a wanderer, without a home, 
and with no friends to look to. I had been about nine 
months at the McClatchy farm, and I had begun to 
think I would remain there all my life, or at least until 
I had become a man, but it seems that I was doomed 
to spend my boyhood days wandering around the 
world. I saw there was no escape, so I packed up a 



My First Sweetheart. 27 

little bundle, put on my best clothes, bade good-bye 
to my third home, and started out in the night to look 
for another place where I might earn my livelihood — 
and perhaps be happy. 

O 



CHAPTER VI. 
My First Sweetheart. 

Now came another tramp of two days in search of 
a new home and work to earn a living. Finally Thomas 
Bowman, a farmer, gave me a place and it was while 
with him that I met my first sweetheart. I was then 
about 9 years old, and near-by lived Margaret Harris, 
a little younger. Margaret was a little flaxen-haired 
Irish beauty, and I was soon her devoted admirer. 
When the fair was on at Marfet, Margaret and I de- 
cided we would like to go, and we slipped away with- 
out anyone being the wiser. Mr. Bowman had given 
me a shilling, and we bought candy with part of it. 
We were both industriously eating off the same stick 
when Margaret's brother saw us. He was going to 
beat me, but I was too spry for him and kept out of 
his way. He finally decided to take his spite out on 
Margaret, but I gathered up a bunch of stones and 
kept up such a fusilade that he had to run to keep 
from being seriously hurt. 

Margaret then decided we had better go home, 
and we started. Her brother got home ahead of us 
and there was trouble coming to me when we arrived. 



28 My First Sweetheart. 

But I was wary of the old folks, and leaving Margaret 
at the gate, I scurried away like a criminal. 

After supper I decided that I ought to go and see 
what they were doing to Margaret. I went to the 
house and got behind the jamb wall, and found that I 
was the subject under discussion. 

"Indeed, if that brat comes back again for Mar- 
garet I'll take the kettle and scald him from head to 
heels," said Mrs. Harris. 

From where I was standing I could see Margaret 
in another room, so when their backs were turned I 
slipped through the door, and we were having a very 
pleasant chat when I saw the old folks coming into 
the room to retire. It just took one jump and a bit of 
a roll over to get under the bed, and there I had to 
remain till they were asleep and snoring. Then I 
crawled out and made my escape. 

Margaret and I remained fast friends as long as 
I lived with Mr. Bowman, but we always kept our eyes 
open for fear of that kettle of scalding water. 

One of the first duties I learned on the farm was 
to milk the cows, and that was part of my work at 
Bowman's. Shortly after I came there the cows be- 
gan to give bitter milk, and as usual the people decided 
they were bewitched. Among the chief and loudest 
adherents of the witchery theory were an old shoe- 
maker and his wife, who lived in a cottage on the 
farm. For several weeks this condition of affairs kept 
up. 

One night when I was coming home late I saw a 
light in the stable. I went to the house and awakened 



My First Sweetheart. 29 

Tom and told him the witches were in the stable and 
we could catch them. Tom was afraid to go out with 
me, so I awakened his sister, Jane. She said she was 
not afraid of man or devil. We went to the stable, and 
as we opened the door we saw the witches, or their 
chief supporters, the old shoemaker and his wife. 
They had been stealing the milk all the time, and after 
finishing the milking they would rub bitter aloes on 
the teats, which would give what little milk remained 
a bitter taste. 

That ended the reign of the witches in Bowman's 
stable, and it also ended the tenancy of the old shoe- 
maker on the Bowman farm. 

Tom decided he needed another cow, and went to 
the Cross fair to purchase one. He was very near- 
sighted, which made it very difficult for him to attend 
to any sort of business, except to count money, which 
he seemed to know by the feel of it. He came home 
late that evening, and announced to me — I was in the 
stable — that he had found a fine cow. I went out into 
the yard and there stood a big red bull. 

"That's a bull," I told Tom. 

"It's a cow," he said. "Don't you think you can 
give me such a story as that." 

"I tell you it's a bull," I declared, and he got mad 
and chased me into the house. 

I called for Jane, and told her what was wrong, 
and she followed Tom to the yard. When she told 
Tom the same as I had, he was furious and drove the 
bull out of the yard into the road. But there was no 
use loosing the cow and the bull, also, so Jane and I 



30 My First Sweetheart. 

convinced him that since we could not have a cow 
we would keep the bull until we had a chance to 
sell it. 

One morning Huch McGuiggen, a crazy fellow, 
who always had a pack of dogs following him wher- 
ever he went, came to the farm. He had a dog he 
called the 'Captain, and when I began to tease him he 
set the Captain on me. I picked up a rock and knock- 
ed the Captain down, and he lay there for a moment, 
the breath out of him, as if he were dead. Hughy, 
thinking I had killed the dbg, fell on his knees, and 
prayed to the Lord to smite me dead. But his prayer 
was not answered. 

In the fall of that year the hunters came to the 
country. One day they chased a fox through Mr. 
Johnston's field, which was surrounded by a high 
thorn hedge, and all the hunters went around to a 
low place to take the leap. But there was a Mrs. 
Gaston in the party who rode a fine horse, and she 
thought she could make the leap. 

The horse failed and fell back, throwing her oflf. 
Two men working in a field across the way, one 
named Henderson, the other Mcjimsey, went to her 
rescue. They helped her to get straightened out, 
tightened the saddle girth, and helped her to mount. 
When she was ready to ride on, she turned to Hen- 
derson and thanking the men for their kindness, asked 
Henderson if he were married. He said he was, and 
she handed him a five-pound note. Then turning to 
Mcjimsey, she asked : 

"And are vou married?" 



I Become a Circus Ferformier- 3? 

"No," he replied. 

"Then the sight was enough for you/' and she 
rode away without giving him so much as a penny. 

O 

CHAPTER VII. 
I Become a Circus Performer. 

Early the following Spring a circus was billed to 
show at the Cross, and I wanted to go, but Tom told 
me boys never went to circuses. I was not satisfied, 
however, and that evening, when he and his sister an- 
nounced that they were going to spend the evening 
with some friends, I went out and hurried to the 
circus grounds. There was no chance to carry water 
for the elephant, and as I had no money, I tried to 
sneak under the tent, but one of the circus men caught 
me and drove me away. I then went to Jane Ditty, 
who kept a store, and she loaned me the money, and 
told me to gO' straight home as soon as the show was 
over. I had hardly got seated in the tent when I saw 
Tom and Jane sitting in the reserved section. 

That was the first time I had ever seen a circus, 
and though I have seen many since, of course, the 
first is always the best. I was delighted with the lady 
in the pink tights who so bravely rode around the ring 
on the big fat white horse, from whose back it would 
seem impossible tO' fall, and I thought it would be 
easy to imitate her. But the fellows who swung 
themselves between heaven and earth on the high 



32 I Become a Circus Performer. 

trapeze won my admiration most. It looked like a 
gay life to me, and I wished I could get a job with the 
show and learn to win the applause of the great 
crowds of people. 

But I had no idea that there was a chance for a 
poor boy as I was to climb so high on the ladder of 
ambition, so as soon as the show was over I hurried 
to the door, thinking I would find Tom and Jane and 
get to ride home with them. But I missed them in 
the crowd and had to take the long walk home. 

When I reached the farm, I found the door of the 
house locked. I tried the stable door and it was also 
locked. So I went back to the Cross and slept with 
Hugh Watt. 

In the morning I went down to the circus grounds, 
and walked around among the ponies. One of the men 
told me what a fine lot of ponies they had, and I 
agreed with him, 

"How would you like to go with the show and 
ride one of the ponies every day in the parade?" he 
asked. 

"Most of anything- in the world." I told him. 

Then one of the managers came along, and he 
asked me whose boy I was, and when I told him I was 
an orphan, he asked me all sorts of questions. 

"Well, if your nobody's boy, we'll just take you 
with us," he finally said, and from that moment I 
became a member of the profession. 

The circus loaded up that night after the show 
was over, and we rode through the darkness to the 
next town. It was a wagon show, long before railroad 



I Become a Circus Peirformer. 33 

shows had been dreamed of, and from the standpoint 
of "The Greatest Show on Earth," which one sees 
now-a-days, it was not so much of a circus. But I 
thought it was great then, and still think so, looking 
back through the eyes of memory at the happenings 
mellowed by the flight of time. 

I was not only a performer, but was one of the 
animal keepers. I had charge of "The Wild and 
Ferocious, Untamed" Billy Goat, and also "The Edu- 
cated Pig." 

When the show was on I my first act was to 
wrestle with the goat, then Billy would climb a lad- 
der, ride a swinging horse, and do many other tricks. 

Later I would ride furiously into the ring on the 
trained pig. When we reached the mat, he would 
stop suddenly and I would be thrown over his head. 
I would then toss a lot of cards on the mat, and would 
ask the pig: 

"Who is the wisest man in the house?" 

He would promptly root around among the cards, 
pick one up and bring it to me. One of the clowns 
would then read it, and the crowd would go wild with 
delight when the name of the most notorious town 
fool was heard. The pig would also find the name of 
the laziest man and other persons of like distinction. 

I enjoyed circus life. I was a boy, and what boy 
would not for a time be dazzled by the glamor of tin- 
sel and gaudy paint. We traveled all over, Ireland, 
Scotland and Wales, and I thus got to see every sec- 
tion of the kingdom. 



34 Ofe for the TTopics. 

From Liverpool we were to have gone to France 
on the ship "Dolphin," and we had the animals aboard 
and were ready to sail when it was discovered that 
the ship was leaking and we were compelled to dis- 
embark. There was no other ship to carry us over 
just then, and the manager decided tO' tie up in Liver- 
pool. That threw me out of a job for a time, which did 
not suit me, and I severed my connections with the 
"profession" forever. 

O 

CHAPTER VIIL 

Off For the Tropics. 

Again I began looking for work, for it was not my 
nature to be long idle. Here was I a lad of 13, alone 
in a strange city, and my only chance for my three 
meals and a bed was to find something to do, and that 
very shortly, for the funds I had in my pocket would 
not last long. I did not look for something great, all 
I could do was to sweep floors, run errands after I 
should learn the city, or something of that sort. Al- 
most the first open door attracted me. It was near 
the Princess dock that I saw a large building with the 
sign "Miller Bros." above the door. I at once entered 
the door and asked to see Mr. Miller. As I was well 
dressed and did not look the poor orphan that I was, 
I was ushered into the presence of the senior member 
of the firm, a kindly old gentleman, who looked at me 
over his glasses, and really seemed disappointed when 



Off for tbe Ttropics. 35 

he told me he had no work of the sort I could do. 
There were a number of boys around the place, and as 
most of them seemed to have plenty of time on their 
hands I realized there was not much chance for em- 
ployment of another to help them to do nothing. 

I was leaving the mill, disappointed but not dis- 
heartened, ready to visit the place next door on the 
same errand, when I was met by Mr. Miller's son, who 
for some reason was struck by my presence, and be- 
gan a conversation. I was always willing to tell my 
story in a straightforward way, and he soon had the 
main points of my short but, to me, eventful, life. 

"How would you like to go tO' the West Indies," 
asked Mr. Miller. 

The place I had never so much as heard of but 
that did not deter me for a moment, and did not regret 
it when I learned that it would mean a long trip at 
sea, for what boy would not swell with pride at the 
knowledge that he could take such a long trip alone. 

Mr. ]\^iller promised me a trade, either to make 
sugar or rum, and a t'-ade was what I wanted. So the 
papers were at once d^awn up and s"gned, and I was 
taken care of till the b^a*" should sail First of all, -''"r. 
Miller took me to a *a'lor and had me measured for 
linen clothes, so that I could s^a*^d ^he warm climate. 
Then he told me as much as poss'ble about the new 
life that was before me and told me something about 
the work. I was to accent e'^he^ trade that was need- 
ing a lad of my ap-e mos^ when T arri^red in the West 
Indies, where the orea^ olantation lav. 



36 Off for the Tropics. 

The following Sunday I sailed. The sun was shin- 
ing, and the air was warm and pleasant, and every- 
thing augured well for the beginning of a new and 
unique epoch in my life. I was introduced to Capt. 
Murray at the office, and he came for me when he was 
ready to go aboard. In a little while the schooner 
Murray was sailing smoothly out of the harbor, with 
me standing at the rail, watching the land slip away. 

Not a storm came to mar the beauty of the sea 
through the entire voyage. For five weeks all nature 
seemed to smile on my little enterprise. At first I 
could not appreciate the beauty and the majesty of the 
great expanse of water, for I became seasick, but I 
soon got upon my sea legs, and then I would stay on 
deck for hours, with my eyes on the horizon, where the' 
blue of the sky and the sea seemed to meet and blend 
together, as though they were one. 

Capt. Murray was very kind to me. One night he 
took me out on the quarter deck with him on his 
watch, told me stories of the sea, and answered my 
thousand and one boyish questions about the details 
of working the ship. I was sorry it was so soon to be 
over, and regretted that I had not signed for a sailor 
instead of going to the unknown land, to the great 
plantation with its hundreds of slaves. 

At last, tired out, I lay down on the deck, and 
was almost asleep, when there was a great commotion 
in the water near us. I started up, and the Captain 
laughed at my fear. 

''Jimmie, you thought you were dead," said Capt. 
Murray, "but it was only the devil after you." 



Off for the Tropics. 37 

I was ready to admit that it must have been the 
devil, but the Captain told me it was a whale spouting. 
I had never heard of a whale, and I kept looking over 
the rail, hoping he would come back again, but he 
didn't, and I soon lay down again and studied the stars 
until I fell asleep. 

Capt. Murray's wife and little daughter, Mary, 
were on board, and here was where I fell in love again. 
Little Mary and I soon became friends. She was the 
pet of the ship, every sailor was ready to lay down his 
life, if need be, for the Captain's daughter, and as we 
were together most of the time I soon was shining in 
the light of her popularity. 

We saw many schools of porpoises and flying fish, 
and when we were about five weeks out the sailors 
caught a shark which was nineteen feet and four 
inches long. Mary and I cleaned the teeth and jaws, 
and the jaws were so wide we could walk between 
them. I gave them all to Mary and she said she would 
take them back to England and keep them forever. 

At last we came in sight of land. The ship laid up 
in Kingston harbor to unload part of her cargo, and 
Mary and I were allowed to step on land for a little 
while. We were walking alone around the town seeing 
the sights when Mary saw a small kid she thought 
she would like. Her only thought was law for me, and 
I quickly captured the kid and we went back to the 
ship. Unfortunately for my gallantry, the owner of 
the kid missed it and easily traced it to the ship. Mary 
wept when she was told that it had to be returned to 
the owner, so the Captain paid the man a few shillings 



38 I Begin Plantation Life. 

and was allowed to keep it. 

The following morning we again set sail, and in 
a few days tied up at Savanna la Mar, where I was to 
disembark. My boxes were put on the dock, there was 
a tearful parting with Mary and a hearty God-speed 
from the Captain, and I was left alone and friendless 
in an unknown land, but with my papers in my pocket, 
I was sure of a welcome, a place to work and I hoped 
for the same kind treatment that had always been ac- 
corded to me in the years that I had been a wanderer, 
my home wherever I could get my short legs under a 
table, or lay my head on a comfortable pillow. 

O 

CHAPTER IX. 
I Begin Plantation Life. 

As soon as I made it known that I was destined 
for Miller Bros." plantation, I was warmly welcomed, 
for the plantation was famous there, and I had no dif- 
ficulty in getting a man to guide me to the place. I 
was delighted with the tropical country, and every 
new turn as we drove along opened up a new and 
charming view before me. The novelty made the long 
drive all too brief, and even though I was anxious to 
find my new home, I was sorry the way was so short. 

At last we drove up tO' a long, low building with 
great porches around it, and I was told that my journey 
was ended, for this was the plantation house. Around 
it and but a short distance away were scores of huts. 



I Begin Plantation Life. 39 

Thesew ere for the slaves, and they made up quite a 
little city, for the plantation was forty miles square and 
there were thirteen hundred slaves on the place. And 
they were under control of but three white men. 

I immediately became a "man" of importance, for 
I was the fourth white man there and became one- 
fourth of the white force. Mr. Latham was the man- 
ager of the estate. He took my papers, gave me a 
hearty hand shake and I was at once installed in my 
new place in the world. 

Every day, aye, every hour, brought me into new 
and novel scenes. The blacks were a study for me, for 
I had never seen so many of them. My entire ex- 
perience with them had been to see an occasional one 
in England while traveling with the circus, and I had 
never thought there were so many of them in the 
world. 

Mr. Latham set me to work the following morn- 
ing. I then appreciated the kindness of Mr. Miller in 
fitting me out with light linen clothing, for the sun 
beat down upon me with the force of a red ball of 
fire right above my head. The sugar house and still 
bouse were not far from the plantation headquarters, 
and I was taken through them and told the mysteries 
of making rum and sugar. I quickly learned my du 
ties and soon became expert in the intricacies of tb<" 
art. A long trough carried the waste from the suea^ 
house to the still house, and this waste was used in 
the rum making. Two negroes were kept constantly 
at work to keep the sugar from filling up the troue^- 
I told Mr. Latham that if he had an Irish spade, th 



40 I Begini Plantationj Life. 

work could he done easily by one man, who would 
even then have time to spare for something else. He 
had never seen just such a spade as I described, but he 
sent to England for some and they came a few months 
later. When they arrived I took one of them out to 
show the blacks how to use it. Just as I got started, 
I heard a fight out in the yard, and went to see what 
was happening. It was between two of the slaves. 
As soon as they saw me they stopped fighting and 
slunk away, so great was their fear of a white face. 

When I returned to the waste trough, I found the 
negro was using the spade to stir the sirrup. I was 
always quick tempered, and yelled at him to drop the 
spade immediately. Then I ran up took the spade 
and struck him over the head, cutting a bad gash in 
his scalp. When he got better he went into town and 
sued me, but when the trial came up and it was found 
that he had sued a white man they held his horse in 
bond until he had paid me $25, a negro not being al- 
lowed to sue a white man under the laws of the island. 

One Saturday I went into Savanna la Mar and 
found that a circus was laid up because the ship had 
foundered in the harbor. I soon got acquainted with 
some of the men, and when they found that I had been 
a member of the "profession." I was made quite one of 
them. I invited some of them out to the estate with 
me, and as they could not leave the island they went 
with me. There they saw a little black dwarf they 
wanted to take with them. He was only about two 
feet high and his hands and feet were like those of a 
monkey, the vertiable missing link. They asked me 



I Begin Plantation Life. 41 

if they couldn't buy the dwarf, and I told them I didn't 
think they could, as the blacks would not let him go 
away. They had a sort of superstitious reverence for 
the little deformed creature. 

At last I agreed to steal the boy for them, and one 
day I found him alone in the cane field, picked him up 
and jumped on my horse. I started for town as fast 
as the horse could go, the darkey howling at the top of 
his voice. At last he was heard by some of the 
blacks, who jumped on horses and started after me. 
It was a mad race for many miles, but my horse was 
overburdened and had been going longer than the 
others and I soon saw that I would be captured. I 
was then about five miles from the town, with my 
horse galloping his best, I loosened my hold on the 
dwarf and he dropped into the road. I never stopped 
to see if he was hurt, but kept on going, fearing the 
wrath of the blacks. They stopped the pursuit as 
soon as they got the boy, and rode back to the estate. 

I stayed in town several days before venturing back 
among them, but finally returned and found the little 
dwarf all right, and the incident practically forgotten. 
The men thought I was only playing a joke, and never 
found out that I was trying to steal the dwarf, to make 
him an attraction in a circus, with a place in a cage, like 
a wild animal. 

I had only been on the plantation a few months 
when the stiller, Mr. Proctor, died, and as there was no 
one else to take his place it was given to me to take 
charge of the rum making. I had been working under 
Mr. Proctor all the time I had been there, and had 



42 Hold-up Tliat Failed. 

learned the chief points in the trade. I had little 
trouble superintending the work, though sometimes I 
would find myself in a place where something new oc- 
curred, and then I had to wrack my brain for a way to 
solve the problem. The work was so confining, how- 
ever, that my health broke down, and when the crop 
was all taken off Mr. Latham sent me to Retherwood 
Mountain, a health and summer resort for the white 
planters. After the crop was off the slaves could 
easily do the work for the balance of the year. 

O 

CHAPTER X. 
Hold-Up That Failed. 

I had only been at Retherford a few days when 
a slave came with a letter for me from Mr. 
Latham, telling me I was wanted at the plantation. I 
at once rode back with the slave, and Mr. Latham told 
me he wanted me tO' go to Kingston for money for the 
estate. He told me it was a dangerous mission, but 
that he had no one else who could go. I started the 
following morning, driving a team of mules, with a 
slave named Tom riding behind with two' horses, to 
be ridden if anything went wrong with the cart. I 
had two pistols Mr. Latham gave me to be used in case 
of trouble, and had been taught to use them. 

It was a perilous trip for a lad of my years, but I 
had been so long accustomed to care for myself that I 
felt little fear of the consequences, and was really a 



Hold-up 'IThat Failed. 43 

man in everything but years and stature. We had to 
sleep at night in the huts of the half-civilized blacks 
along the way, and no money was given them, for our 
accommodation. On the last day of the journey in, 
I stopped at the home of Mr. Hayden, about sixteen 
miles out from Kingston. He invited me to remain 
one day with him, and he would go to the city with me, 
but I was compelled to decline, as Mr. Latham ex- 
pected me to return as soon as possible. 

"It certainly is something wonderful that so small 
a lad is trusted with such an errand?" said Mr. Hayden 
in parting. "I hope you will fare well on the journey. 
Stop and see me again on your return." 

It was just before noon when I reached Kingston. 
After dinner I called on Mr. Spot, the banker, who had 
been sent word in advance of my coming. He was 
very cordial and asked me to stay in the city all night, 
but I had promised to be back with Mr. Hayden that 
evening, so declined the invitation. 

I got the money and started on the return journey 
as soon as possible. Everything went well until we 
reached Yellow Creek, a small stream about fourteen 
miles out of Kingston. Tom kept hanging back with 
the horses, and the mules would not enter the water 
unless the horses led off. I called to Tom to hurry 
ahead with the horses, but he seemed not to be sO' anx- 
ious for speed as I was, though it was <>-rowing late, 
and he hung back, though I called to him several 
times. 

Suddenly a negro came out of the b^nsh beside the 
road, and bowing to me, asked what titne it was. I 



44 Hold-Up That Failed. 

was annoyed at the delay, and answered that I did not 
care what hour it might be, and the fellow walked 
back and began talking to Tom. Then another black 
came from the brush and asked the same question. 
It began to look serious, as this fellow did not wait for 
a reply, but walked back toward Tom and the horses. 

As I turned to see what was coming off in the 
rear, a third black jumped out of the wood and seized 
the head of the near mule. Quick as a flash, I realized 
that it was a plan to rob me. I whipped out one of 
the pistols and fired at the fellow ahead. He bent 
over as though hit then turned and ran into the brush, 
the others following as fast as they could. 

Tom was all a tremble. Pointing the pistod at 
him, I ordered him to ride ahead tO' Mr. Hayden's and 
tell him what had happened, while I would follow as 
fast as possible in the cart. 

I made good speed and arrived at the Hayden 
place soon after Tom had told of the affair, and Mr. 
Hayden was preparing to come for me. 

Mr. Hayden and I got fresh horses and rode back 
to Yellow Creek. We found a black finger lying be- 
side the road, evidently a memento torn from the hand 
of the man at whom I had fired. A trail of blood led 
to the creek, but there we lost it, and returned to Mr, 
Hayden's in time for supper. 

Mr. Hayden had Tom put in irons, believing he 
had told the blacks of the motive of my journey to 
Kingston, and had formed a plot to rob me. While 
circumstances were ae^ainst him, I could not believe 
that Tom was guilty, but nothing I could say would 



A Happy Reunion 45 

save him. When I started for home the next morn- 
ing, Mr. Hayden sent one of his slaves in place of Tom, 
and we arrived at the estate in good time without 
further mishap. 

A few days later Tom was brought back to the 
plantation in irons. His crime was considered the 
greater, as he was one of the most trusted slaves on 
the place. Mr. Latham heard my story, and though 
I tried to shield the poor fellow, it was of no avail. He 
was put in the treadmill to wear his life away, and re- 
mained there till he died. I was always sorry, ever 
after, that I did not kill the boy instead of letting him 
live to grind away his life in the tread mill. 

The following morning Mr. Latham gave me an 
extra ten pound note and told me I might return to 
Retherford, and stay as long as I liked. 

O 

CHAPTER XL 
A Happy Reunion. 

One need not be an old man to discover that this 
old world is a very small affair after all. Here was I, 
a lad of thirteen or fourteen years, several thousand 
miles away from the home of my birth, and every once 
in a while finding some one with whom I had mutual 
acquaintances in the good old city of Belfast or at some 
other point of my wanderings. 

Rutherford was the resort for the people who were 
self-exiled from the Emerald Isle, and there I found 



46 A Happy Reunion. 

I was quite at home, listening to tales of that little 
green spot, and drinking in the soft music of the voices 
of the lads and lassies who came there to spend the hot 
days of midsummer. 

We were all care free. After the cane crop was 
off, there was little to do that could not be done by the 
slaves until a new crop was grown. So we took long 
holidays, and lolled about under the trees trying to keep 
cool in an almost impossible climate. Cool salt 
breezes were sometimes wafted to us from the ocean 
a few miles away, and with talking and smoking and an 
occasional day of sports such as we used to have on fair 
days in Ireland, we managed to spend many delightful 
days. While I was yet but a chunk of a boy in years, 
the fact that I was stillman at Millersburg — the name 
given to the plantation house, barracks and slave huts 
on the Miller estate — gave me the standing of a man 
among men. What I lacked in stature was made up 
by a sturdy nature and that self-confidence that ever 
comes to the young wanderer, thrown from the cradle 
into the midst of the whirl of life and compelled to 
sink or swim by his own efiforts. There were lads of 
my own asre there with their fathers and mothers, but 
with them I found little companionship, for while they 
were yet boys, I was a man grown before my time. 

One morninsf as I was sitting in a party of men dis- 
cussing: home and family, I told them somethino- of my 
short life — how I had left home when all but a babe and 
had never seen kith or kin since. 

"By the wav." said George Ballans "there's a lad 
of your name living with his mother at Dr. T^Hen's 



A Happy Reunion. 47 

place about thirty miles from here. Now Owens is 
not such a common name. Perhaps he may be a rela- 
tive of yours." 

Ballans did not know the boy's first name, nor 
more than that his name was Owens and that he was 
from Ireland. 

"I'll soon know who he is," I said, and in twenty 
minutes I was on horseback, flying onward with a hope 
in my heart — that hope that ever buoys youth up — that 
the lad named Owens might tell me something of my 
former home and friends. 

And yet, as I neared the Jellen plantation my heart 
misgave me and I slackened the pace of my horse, put- 
ting off the possible disappointment as long as I could. 
But at last I reached the plantation. Giving my tired 
horse to a slave, I asked for Dr. Jellen and was ushered 
into his study. 

'*! hear you have a lad named Owens here," I told 
him, **and as my name is Owens I came to inquire. 
Perhaps — I hope — he's a relative." 

*'Yes?" said the doctor in a tone of inquiry, but as 
I could go no further and sat trembling awaiting for 
some news, he said : *'The boy's name is Matthew 
and his mother is the widow of Captain Hughie 
Drain." 

"^ V mother," I whispered so low that for an in- 
stant the doctor did not know what I said, but seeins: 
the look 'n my eyes he understood. 

"^^'^■f here," he said, ,sroing out. 



48 A Happy Reunion. 

It seemed like an age, sitting there in the cool quiet 
study, though it could only have been a few moments 
that I was left alone. 

Suddenly the door opened and for an instant I saw 
the doctor's kindly face. Then the door was closed 
and I stood face to face with my mother. 

"Jinimie," she sobbed and clasped me to her heart, 
while I could only weep and cling to her, murmuring 
that dear old name that is never forgotten, "Mother." 

Soon she sat down and tried to take me on her 
knee, me who had become a man in the few short years 
I had been from her side — a man, though with a boy's 
heart in thought and love for the mother he had de- 
serted three thousand miles away across the sea. 

Then we began the history of those years, and I 
learned that Captain Drain, remembering the tropical 
beauties of Jamacia, which he had visited while on a 
cruise in the King's navy, had decided to spend his last 
years there, and sailed from Belfast within a year after 
I had run away, bringing my mother, brother and sister 
with him. For five years they had lived together on 
the island, then the Captain and my sister died, leaving 
my mother and little brother to fight the battle of life 
unaided. Mother had little else to tell me of the years 
between. She had found good friends in Dr. Jellen 
and his wife, and the keen struggle for life had been 
made brighter and happier by their kindness. 

While we were talking Little Matthew came in., 
shy but happy in finding the long lost brother of whom 
he had heard so much. I looked down upon him as a 
child from my superior age and experience — I was two 



Uprising of the Blacks. 49 

years his senior — and I determined that we should not 
be parted again for long. 

After two days of happy reunion I mounted my 
horse and rode away to Millersburg to arrange for their 
coming. Mr. Latham gladly welcomed my plan, and 
in a very short while we v/ere a reunited family — 
Mother, Matthew and myself — under one roof, and the 
future seemed brighter for all of us. 

O 

CHAPTER XII. 

Uprising of the Blacks. 

Shortly after mother and Matthew came to make 
their home with me at Millersburg, in 1839, the trouble 
that had been brewing among the negroes in our sec- 
tion of the islands broke out in full force. The act of 
emancipation had been passed by the British Parlia- 
ment, but the time of apprenticeship did not expire and 
their full freedom come until 1841. It was only seven 
years after the great riots in the western end of the 
island, and the ferocity of the blacks at that time was 
well remembered. When the unrest developed around 
Savanna la Mar the planters prepared for real fighting. 
Quickly all the planters gathered their families in the 
town and prepared for the attack that they felt certain 
was sure to come. 

Savanna la Mar was a town of only one long street, 
running from the harbor toward the country. The 
Rev. Mr. Fiddler, who taught a school to which I sent 



50 Uprising of the Blacks. 

Matthew, knew something of military tactics, and he 
arranged the planters into some semblance of military 
discipline. We secured two cannon from the ship 
Murray, which happened to be in the harbor, built a 
barricade at the shore end of the street, planted the 
guns and awaited the coming of the rebels. 

For two days we waited for news. Scouts were 
kept as far inland as was considered safe. On the sec- 
ond day the scouts galloped into town and reported the 
blacks in great numbers less than two miles away. 

Soon the great horde came down upon us, armed 
with clubs and machetes. Silently we waited for them 
as they approached, waited until they were almost at 
the cannon's mouth, then Fiddler shouted the order. 
"Fire." 

Instantly the cannon belched forth death and de- 
struction. Great gaps were cut through the ranks of 
the rebels, and they broke and fled. 

Then began the rifle fire. We had held back to 
witness the result of the cannon shots. Now we 
poured volley after volley into the retreating blacks as 
they ran, doing terrible execution. 

All that day, that night and the following day we 
kept up the pursuit, driving the rebels on and pouring a 
merciless fire into their depleted ranks. Hundreds of 
them fell dead or dying before the barricade, scores 
fell along the roadside, and dozens in the cane fields. 
We left them, food for the carrion birds while we 
pushed on the remnant of the force to the foot of the 
mountains, where they scattered and escaped. 



Uprising) of the Blacks. 51 

Terrible scenes met our view as we rode back un- 
scathed to Savanna la Mar. We had not lost a man, 
but everywhere along the road was evidence of a terri- 
ble slaughter. Bodies lay at every turn, and here and 
there where the rebels attempted to make a stand 
would be seen a little group of victims of the deadly 
aim of the whites. 

And not all were dead. Here and there would lie 
a wounded negro, and as we passed his pitiful cries for 
succor would be heart rending, but we v/ould pass on 
with scarce a look, or perhaps one more humane among 
us would end the poor devil's suffering with a bullet 
from his pistol. 

There were no slaves to bury the hundreds of dead, 
and the bodies would have lain rotting on the roads and 
in the fields, but Mr. Fiddler ordered that they be gath- 
ered up and thrown into the bay. For days we drove 
back and forth with cart loads of the victims and cast 
them into the sea. It was ghastly work and nauseat- 
ing, but work that must be done. No prayers were 
said, no thoughts of future life for these poor victims 
of their own wrath, but occasionally a planter would 
come upon the corpse of one whom he had thought his 
most faithful and trustworthy servant, and with a sigh 
he would turn away and leave its disposal to one in 
whom there could be no thought of sentiment. 

With all our care, not all the bodies were discov- 
ered. For months and years, we would occasionally 
find the skeleton of a man in some isolated section of 
the plantations, and would know that it was only an- 
other victim of the rebellion. 



52 My Friend, the Pirate. 

One fight ended the uprising, though for months 
the planters dared not venture to talce up their homes 
in the country as before, but kept their families at 
Savanna la Mar, only armed guards staying on the out- 
lying estates. 

O 

CHAPTER XIII. 

My Friend the Pirate. 

Three miles out from Savanna la Mar was the 
plantation of Touselin & Davis. Having nothing else 
to do, I accepted a proposition from them to take a 
party of guards out and take charge of the place until 
it was possible for me to return to Millersburg. 

Theirs was a fine old plantation, a most delight- 
ful place to spend a few weeks with nothing to do. I 
gathered together a number of my Irish friends and we 
were soon having great sport, a sort of vacation trip 
for all of us. Touselin was reputed to be a pirate, and 
we found all sorts of evidence of his piratical expedi- 
tions in his house, as there was no one to restrain our 
curiosity. 

One evening I discovered great racks of wine in 
the cellar, and of course told the others about it. That 
night we robed ourselves in sheets and scared the few 
faithful servants who remained on the place so badly 
that they never would venture around the plantation 
house after dark. Then began nights of revelry. We 



My Friend, the Pirate. 53 

figured that it was no crime tO' rob a pirate, so made the 
most of our opportunity. 

The wine was in bottles behind wire screens 
through which it was impossible to drag the bottles, 
but we fixed a piece of wire and would draw the necks 
of the bottles out, pull the corks and empty the wine in- 
to buckets. Then we would push the bottles as far 
back as possible. The corks we threw on the floor 
inside the racks. 

For four months we were given free run of the 
place, and we emptied hundreds of bottles. 

As soon as all danger from the rebellious blacks 
hadp assed, Touselin came with a negro servant and a 
wagon to get a load of wine. When they unlocked 
the racks and went in the negro picked up a bottle and 
found it empty. 

"De cockroaches am a playin' hob wif dis wine, 
Mars. Touselin," he said, picking up a cork that looked 
like it had been chewed. 

The negro's explanation of the empty bottles 
seemed logical, and the real criminals escaped without 
so much as being questioned. 

A few days after this all came back to the Touselin 
place and we guards left, Matthew going back to school 
and I went to the estate. I remained at the estate un- 
til the camp was taken off, then went again to spend 
the summer at Retherford. One day I went out with 
a party to hunt parrots. We felled a tree with a nest 
in it, and it fell across a ravine. When I clambered 
out along the tree to secure the nest I slipped and 



54 My Friend, the Pirate. 

scratched the skin from my ankle. It did not seem 
like it would develope anything serious, and I paid no 
attention to it. But the next Sunday I was invited to 
take a trip with a party of friends. I put on my high 
boots and spent much of the day on my feet. As a 
result my leg swelled, and that evening when I re- 
turned to the hotel I had to cut the boot from my foot. 

The wound bothered me always after that until I 
came to the United States, the climate in Jamacia being 
such that there was no remedy that would have any 
effect on the wound. I was finally advised to call on 
an old Spanish woman well versed in the use of herbs, 
and I did. She gave me a poultice of plaintain leaves, 
and this helped to give me some relief, but did not cure 
me. The wound would not heal in that climate, and 
that was finally one of the reasons I came to America. 

It seemed fated that I could have no health in the 
climate of Jamaica. After my leg got better I returned 
to Millersburg to help take care of the season's crop, 
but before the work was finished I was stricken with 
black flux, and all the next summer I remained at Reth- 
erford trying to get cured up. That was in 1841, the 
year the blacks finally gained their freedom. Then 
they would not work, and of course, so long as they 
would not gather the crops we could not run the sugar 
and still houses. . So I could do nothing, and re- 
mained at Retherford all that year. It was a sore dis- 
appointment to me, and I was almost as much grieved 
as the owners at the enormous loss that must be sus- 
tained, because the crops were allowed to rot on the 
ground for want of laborers in the fields. 



Trip to Far East. 55 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Trip to Far East. 

I was growing very restless under the enforced 
idleness, and was just thinking of leaving the country 
for good, when Mr. Latham, the manager, received a 
letter from the company, telling him to send me to the 
East Indies if I cared to go, and I promptly assented, 
for to me anything was better than continued idleness, 
and arrangements were made for me to take passage 
on a man-of-war that happened to be going direct to 
Calcutta. It was my first experience on a man-of-war. 
and I found great pleasure in watching the drills of 
the men, and in listening to some of the tales they told 
of great sea fights they had been in. It was great 
experience for a lad of my years, and I did not mind 
the long voyage at all. We stopped at many ports, 
and I occasionally took trips on shore with some of the 
men. 

But the long sea voyage did not have the beneficial 
effect on my health that was expected, and I landed in 
Calcutta all broken down physically. 

I was unable to do anything then, but remained 
there some time, and had an opportunity tO' study 
things in general somewhat from the view of an entire 
outsider. I was practically struck with the power wield- 
ed by the East India Company, which almost ruled 
the country. They had secured control of some of the 
heathen gods and had shut them up, and they would 



56 Trip to Far East. 

only allow the people to go in and worship on fete days, 
and then they charged them an admission fee. I also 
saw a great deal of the work of the missionaries, and I 
am free to say that I did not fancy them. The mis- 
sionaries broke up a great many of the native families 
by converting some of the members, thus causing all 
sorts of trouble. 

I got acquainted with the son of one of the chief 
men of the native population of the town, and the boy 
wore a long cue. With a couple of others I one day 
caught the boy and cut off his cue. He acted like he 
was crazy, and he got together a lot of men and fol- 
lowed me into the section of the city where I was liv- 
ing. They were armed with clubs and pitch forks, and 
we had to flee to the ship for safety. They declared 
they would kill God if He made them cut off their hair. 

As my health failed to improve in the Indian 
climate, the firm sent me to Madras, and I stayed there 
four months, getting worse rather than better. So 
the company decided that I had better return to Ja- 
maica to be among my friends, even though that cli- 
mate was not perfectly suited to my condition. On 
the way we stopped at Manila, and remained there 
about six weeks. I did not get out in the country 
much, but spent most of my time in the city. I had 
not the strength to do much running about, and as the 
weather was very bad, I was content to stay in my 
hotel and take things as easy as possible. Conse- 
quently, very little of interest came under my obser- 
vation there, and I was very glad when the time came 
for us to resume our journey westward. 



Trip to Far East. 57 

When I reached Jamaica I found the negroes still 
in a very unsettled state. There were very few yet 
willing to return to the plantations and work for wages. 
They had been so long hoping for freedom that they 
seemed inclined to have absolute rest, though they 
never were compelled to work extremely hard. But 
with things as they were then, there was nothing for 
me to do, and after three or four months of idleness, I 
decided to go to Cuba and see if I could find work. 

All this time the firm had been very fair, and even 
kind to me. My pay went on just the same as if I had 
been working every day, and I felt that their treatment 
of me was a strong compliment to my faithfulness and 
ability when there was work to be done. I shall never 
forget their kindness as long as I may live. 

My mother and brother I had left at the estate 
when I went to India, and when I returned I found 
that mother had been in poor health. Every attention 
had been paid to her, but she was ageing, and we all 
soon saw that she was nearing the close of her earthly 
pilgrimage. At last the end came. Sorrowfully and 
tenderly we laid her to rest in the little grave yard at 
Savanna la Mar, and Matthew and I felt that we were 
indeed left alone in the world, not only to make our 
own way, but without the counsel and encouragement 
of a loving mother ever watching over us. Her death 
decided me to go to Cuba. I felt that I must work to 
drive away some of the feeling of loneliness that then 
came to me. So I left Matthew in school with Mr. 
Fiddler and I again started out to find a new place in 
a new world to me. With a party of other young men 



58 Experiences in Cuba. 

in my circumstances I sailed from Kingston, keeping 
my back to the past and with a strong hope for the fu- 
ture. 

O 

CHAPTER XV. 
Experiences in Cuba. 

We found conditions somewhat different when we 
arrived in Cuba. Work was plentiful, and I had the 
good fortune to meet a man named Kessuck, who had 
visited Jamaica and had stopped at the Miller estate. 
He was also a manufacturer of sugar and rum, and 
wanted a man to take charge of the still house. 

"Can you make as good rum for me as you made 
for the Miller's?" he asked me. 

"I don't see why I shouldn't," I replied, and we 
promptly struck a bargain. 

He gave me a contract which called for very fair 
pay, but I was to receive a considerable increase if I 
succeeded in making as good rum as I made in Jamaica. 

The following morning after striking the bargain, 
he took me out to see his still house, and I soon saw 
where the trouble lay with his rum. The still was too 
small. 

"To make good rum, you must have a larger still, 
as the rum will burn in such a still," I told him. 

His tanks only had a capacity of forty barrels of 
dunder. and to make good rum I told him it would be 
necessary to build tanks that would hold two thousand 



Experiences in Cuba. 59 

barrels, and a still the same size with a worm five 
hundred feet long, instead of the one he had, which was 
not over fifty feet. In making rum, one must be very 
careful not to allow any burn to appear in the taste of 
it, as it can then never be cured. 

"If you will allow me to make these changes I 
think we can make as good rum here as anywhere," I 
told him. "The water and everything else seems of 
the best." 

I did not know then, but learned it afterward, as 
everybody else has, that there seems to be something in 
the atmosphere of Jamaica that makes its rum super- 
ior to anything else in the world. What it is no one 
to this day seems able to explain, but it is nevertheless 
a fact. 

However, I was not destined to learn this fact from 
experience, though Mr. Kessuck gave me free hand at 
fixing the still house to suit my ideas. 

I had about four months to build a new still house 
and have everything ready for the next crop, but as 
there was considerable work to be done, I began at 
once. He gave me as many negroes as I could keep 
busy, and we soon had the old building torn down and 
the foundation laid for the new ones. But on the 
nineteenth day, when everything was in the most 
chaotic state, two priests came to the plantation with a 
letter which they handed to me. I refused to take it, 
telling them that I was not the man who owned the 
estate and that I did not belong to them. An Irish 
protestant ever has a great dislike for the Catholic, 
clergy, and though I was never much of a churchman 



60 Experiences in Cuba. 

of any kind, still I had the same aversion. It must 
have been born in me. 

The priests began to talk to each other in Spanish, 
and not understanding them, I thought they were put- 
ting a curse on me. I decided that I could play a little 
at that game myself, and gave them a string of vituper- 
ation that would have made a West Indian pirate proud 
of my vocabulary. 

Then an interpreter came up and told me I must 
not swear at the priests, as they owned the island and 
that if I refused to take the letter they would put me in 
prison. 

Now, I never was much of a hand for prison, so I 
finally consented to take the letter and delivered it to 
Mr, Kessuck, and the priests left. 

When Mr. Kessuck returned, I delivered the letter 
to him. It was an order for me to attend church 
every Sunday. I guess I must have been the only un- 
regenerate on the island, and the priests were loathe 
to lose an opportunity to have the island entirely Cath- 
olic — at least to all outward seeming. Still I was little 
inclined to be taken to church by force, and I so told 
Mr. Kessuck. 

He declared that there was no way out of it, and 
even he might be sent to prison for harboring a prot- 
estant. He asked me to ride up to the church every 
Sunday, even if I did not enter, but at this I got angry, 
and told him I was not a Catholic by preference and did 
not propose to be made one by force, not even if they 
did send me to prison. Mr. Kessuck wanted me to at 



Experiences in Cuba. 61 

least pocket my prejudices until I had fixed up the 
place, but I would not do even this. 

That night, as I lay in bed, I began to think pretty 
seriously about the situation in which I was placed and 
I began to realize that Cuba was the most unhealthful 
place for me on the globe. So I got up, packed up a 
little bundle of clothing and slipped out into the night. 
All that night I walked on toward Havana. When 
the sun came up, I lay down under a mango tree and 
slept till night came on, then resumed my journey. I 
felt like a criminal fleeing from prison, and I would 
hide in the undergrowth by the road side every time I 
saw any one coming. At last I reached the city, and 
I took the first vessel bound for Jamaica, where I knew 
I could be free from the disturbances of the priests. 

What became of the lads who came with me from 
Jamaica I did not know, and I dared not ask for fear 
that I might be detected and be made to return to the 
Kessuck plantation^ — which I would have been glad to 
do, but I was more afraid that they would force me to 
go and sit under the preaching of the priests whom I 
so thoroughly despised. 

Until time to sail away I had another name and 
for the time Jimmie Owens was lost to the world, to be 
resurrected when I should again be under the protec- 
tion of the British flag, where a man can have any reli- 
gion he likes, and can get along with none if he so de- 
sires. 



62 Brief Experience as Ship Steward. 

CHAPTER XVI. 

Brief Experience as Ship Steward. 

When I returned to Jamaica I found that the ne- 
groes were as much unsettled as when I left, and there 
was then no chance for me to work on the estate. Idle- 
ness had become very irksome to me and I decided I 
could not stand it lying around Retherford, so tofd Mr. 
Latham I had decided to go to California. 

After staying a couple of days with Matthew at 
Savanna la Mar, I went to Kingston, where I shipped 
on board a vessel as assistant steward. The ship was 
going to California around the Horn, and I thought it 
a much better scheme to work my way than to have 
to pay fare and have nothing to do throughout the en- 
tire voyage, which would have consumed months. 

The second day out they set me to cleaning the 
compass lamp, and I, not knowing that was loose in 
the socket, tipped it up to pour out the oil. With a 
bang it slipped out, struck the rail, then fell into the 
sea. The mate saw the accident, and I knew I was in 
for it. I oflFered to pa}^ the value of the lamp, but 
money was not what they wanted. They needed the 
lamp, as there was not another one on board. All that 
they compelled me to hold candles so they could see 
the compass and the following day I had to do my 
usual round of work. I saw that I was doomed to a 
life of toil day and night for months. As my health 
was far from good, I knew it meant death to me. 
During the night, I fell asleep and dropped the candle, 



Brief Experieiice as Ship Steward. 63 

and then got a taste of the cat-o'nine-tails that showed 
me that a living hell was in store for me for the bal- 
ance of the voyage. 

The ship put into Green Bay to get a supply of 
water before making a full start on the vo3^age and to 
get a supply of fresh meat. I had only a fair idea of 
the place, though I knew it was on the lower end of 
the island, miles away from my friends, but I determin- 
ed to get away from the ship if possible. My body 
was marked with welts left by the rope, and I was 
worn out from want of sleep. My condition made me 
desperate. 

Luckily, I was sent with the party on shore to 
carry back the meat, and I watched for my opportuni- 
ty. As we went along, about a mile from the ship I 
saw a path leading into the deep undergrowth, and I 
made up my mind that as we returned I would get 
away by that path or die in the attempt. 

All tne party but myself were armed with pistols, 
and I felt that they would not be afraid to use them, 
but that did not deter me. We were on shore proba- 
ble an hour or two, and then started back to the vessel. 
I was carrying a heavy basket of meat, and was walk- 
ing ahead. I walked as fast as I could when we 
neared the path, in an endeavor to get a little way 
ahead of the others. 

Just as I reached the path, I dropped the basket 
and ran for it. The guards fired, but no bullets hit 
me, and I was convinced they were firing in the air. 
Still my heart was beating wildly, and I was almost 
ready to fall from exhaustion. Finally I turned, and 



S4 Brief Experience as Ship Steward. 

could see no one, nor could I hear anyone coming, so I 
slackened my pace, and finally lay down in a concealed 
place in the underbrush to rest. 

Suddenly I became drowsy and fell asleep before 
I realized that I was not yet out of danger. How 
long I slept I can not tell, but it must have been several 
hours, as it was nearly sundown when I awoke. 

The sleep had refreshed me somewhat, though I 
was stiff and sore from my experience on shipboard. 
But I started on, knowing a hard journey was before 
me. The only way I could get back to Savanna la 
Mar was to walk. I was afraid to go into the town at 
Green Bay, for fear the ship crew might have left a 
warrant for me, so I struck out for the nearest friendly 
haven, Millersburg. 

It was a long, weary trip, but at last I arrived 
there safe and happy to have made my escape, even 
at the cost of so much fatigue and suffering, for I knew 
that worse awaited me if I remained with the ship. 

It seemed fated that I should not escape from 
Jamaica, and though I had had many and prosperous 
days on the island, I was determined to leave, for the 
days of its prosperity for me seemed to be at an end. 
After a little rest I went to Savanna la Mar, and 
stayed a few days with Matthew at Fiddler's school. 

I had heard great stories about the chances for 
young men in America, and though my recent exper- 
iences had greatly depleted my purse, I made up my 
mind to leave for the United States and take Matthew 
with me. Mr. Latham and Mr. Fiddler agreed that 
my plan was a good one, though they said they were 



My Arrival in America. 65 

sorry to have us leave. I spent the last few days on 
the island visiting friends in the country, and while 
there both Matthew and I were poisoned, Matthew suf- 
fering from something like ivy poison on the leg, and 
I had eaten what I thought were mushrooms, but 
which, by making me very sick, proved that they were 
not. However, when the ship arrived, I was feeling 
well enough to start, and we bade good-bye to our 
many friends, and again started out in the world, full 
of hope in the future and faith in the free country for 
which we were destined. 

O 



CHAPTER XVH. 
My Arrival in America. 

After paying the fare on the boat for Matthew and 
myself, I had only about five dollars left on which to 
start life in America. The health of both of us began 
to improve on the voyage and we were feeling first rate 
when we landed at Norfolk, Va., on July 3, 1843. 

There a new experience was awaiting us. At 
midnight as we lay asleep, we were aroused by the 
ringing of bells ; blowing of steam whistles and boom- 
ing of cannon. We both jumped up, thinking the 
town must be burning or the slaves had revolted, only 
to be told that it was the Fourth of July, and this was 
the noisy way they had in America of celebrating In- 
dependence Day. I have now lived in America long 



66 My Arrival in America. 

enough to appreciate the occasion, and if I were out 
of the country when the date comes around each year 
I would feel lost without the noise and the red fire 
that are the natural complement of the day. 

We wanted to go tO' Baltimore, but the fare was 
five dollars each by boat and we could not both ride 
on one ticket. I tried to convince the ticket agent 
that he ought to accept the five and let us both go on 
one ticket, but he could not see it in that light! So,, 
after three days trying to arrange the matter, I de- 
cided to let Matthew go by boat with the baggage and 
I would follow on foot. I bought a ticket for him and 
helped him on board with the baggage. Just as we 
got it all on board the plank was pulled in, and the 
boat started Avith me still on board. When the boat 
was between Norfolk and Newport they came for our 
tickets and I tried to explain, but the Captain would 
not listen to me, and gave me a good dressing down for 
trying to beat ni}^ way. When about half way across 
the bay we met another boat and the two ran along 
side each other and I was put on board the other boat 
to be taken back to Norfolk. They had hardly gotten 
started when the Baltimore boat blew its whistle, they 
came along side again and the Captain ordered me to 
come aboard. I started to comply when a man on 
the boat told me to remain where I was. 

"They put you off,'" he said, ''now make them put 
you on again." 

It did not take them long to give me a boost that 
sent me flying to the deck of the other boat and we 
were soon again on our way. 



xMy Arrival in America. 67 

The man who had spoken to me greeted me cor- 
dially and told me he was Samuel Huston, of Virginia. 
Some one had told the Captain that I was a sailor es- 
caping from the British navy, and the Captain came 
up and asked me who and what I was, so I told him my 
whole story. Mr. Fluston asked me to go to his place 
in Virginia and be a slave overseer, but I told him I 
had had enough of the negroes and wanted to get as 
far away from them as possible. Then he offered to 
give me some money, l)Ut this I declined, telling him 
I was not a subject for charity so long as I was able 
to work. 

So we at last landed in l>altimorc without a cent. 
Mr. Huston was still in his berth when the boat lanrled, 
and Matthew and I hurried ashore, not wanting to have 
anything more to say to the Captain, as I was afraid 
of him. We knew no one in the place, so I put our 
baggage in a sherl and told Matthew to watch it while 
I hunted for work. I traveled around all that day till 
dark without success, and at last found myself on a 
road leading out of town. I met a man and asked 
him the way back to the docks and he gave me the 
right direction. I soon came to a livery stable, and 
there I again applied for work. 

"You look more like you were looking for a grave 
yard than for work," said the proprietor, but he was 
still very kind about it and sent me to another stable 
and told me to tell the man there to give me a place 
to stay till I found something better. 

I followed his directions, and was soon at the 
second stable, where I found a man named Owen 



68 More Experience With. Priests. 

Brown. I told him why I came to see him, and when 
I told him my name was Owens and that I had just 
come from Jamaica, he said he knew my brother 
Robert. 

"You don't look much like an Irishman," he said, 
looking me over and noting my yellow sickly appear- 
ance. "But Bob Owens told me he had two brothers 
in Jamaica, and if you are one of them you can stay 
here without work as long as you like." 

Brown sent a wagon after Matthew and the bag- 
gage and brought him to the stable. The following 
Sunday he sent for Robert and brought him to see us. 
Neither of us had seen Robert since the family was 
broke up by Captain Drain, when Matthew was but 
a baby and I was little more. Robert had come to 
American soon after that and spent most of his time 
around Baltimore, and had made many friends by his 
wholesome Irish ways. 

Owen Brown proved himself a good friend to all 
of us, and Matthew and I stayed with him several 
weeks until I found a place to work. 

O 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

More Experience With Priests. 

Finally I gfot a job driving a milk waggon for a 
man named O'Toole. It was hard work and the pay 
was small — four dollars a month — but it was better 
than nothing, and I did not pass anything by in those 



More Experience With Priests. 69 

days. I had to get up at 3 a. m., milk seven cows and 
deliver the milk in time for other people's breakfasts. 
I was kept comfortably busy until 9 o'clock at night, 
so there was little time for me to get into trouble. 

One morning the family all went to early mass and 
left me to build the fires, as I did not have to go out 
with the wagon that morning. The church was not 
far from the house, and O'Toole soon saw his chimney 
burning. The whole family left their devotions and 
came running back home, but meanwhile I had gotten 
the fire out, at the same time scattering soot all over 
the house. 

O'Toole was a devout Catholic and had three sons 
in the priesthood. That Sunday morning he told me 
to hitch up and go to a church about five miles away 
and bring one of his sons home to dinner. As we 
were returning, the horse stumbled and I cursed him. 

"Don't you know you are in the presence of a holy 
father?" he asked me, "and you should not swear." 

"I'll swear if I want to," I replied. 

"I could also drown you right here in the road if 
I wanted to," said the priest. 

"I'll be damned if you could drown me without 
water," said I. 

That ended the controversy, and the priest remain- 
ed silent all the way home, evidently believing me be- 
yond redemption. But when we got home, he told his 
father I was a very bad boy. 

"He may not be much of a lad for priests," said the 
old man," but he's pretty good with the milk wagon." 



70 More Experience With Priests. 

The following spring another milk man, Mr. 
Glandell, offered me more money to work for him, so 
O'Toole raised my wages from $4 to $16 a month, and 
I stayed with him. 

One day O'Toole asked me to go to the wharf for 
a load of wood. As my horse had been out with the 
milk wagon, I asked him to allow me to drive another 
horse he had in the stable. The horse was a big raw- 
boned blind one, and O'Toole told me he w6uld not 
pull. But my horse was tired with his day's work, 
and I insisted on hitching the balker to the cart. 

''All right," said the old man, "but if you get stuck 
half way home don't blame me." 

I got the wood and was making good time home, 
when the horse decided he had done enough for one 
day. We were only a short distance from the house 
when the horse began backing. I had done a good 
deal of coaxing and my patience was gone. I struck 
the horse, but he continued to back toward the fence, 
and finally ran the cart into a gutter. The weight of 
the load was too much for the horse, and he was soon 
standing on his hind legs with the end of the cart in 
the gutter and his front feet in the air. 

I was tired and hungry, so I put a post under the 
horse's breast, left him standing in the air, and went 
to dinner. 

O'Toole asked me where the horse was, and I told 
him I had left him below the house to rest. The old 
man insisted on going to help me unload the wood after 
we had dinner, and then he found the horse posed up 
in the air. 



Work in a New Place. 71 

"Jimniie," he said, "I didn't think you could be so 
cruel to an old horse." 

Perhaps it was a little cruel, but the old horse 
never balked again. With horses it is sometimes 
necessary to use heroic remedies, as it is with balky 
men. 

O 

CHAPTER XIX. 
Work in a New Place. 

The following spring Mr. Glandell offered me 
thirty dollars a month to work for him, and as O'Toole 
could not afford to pay me that much, I made the 
change, glad to have more money in my pocket, 
About this time I was in the throes of another of those 
youthful love affairs that come to all of us. The 
young woman was at Mr. Quid's place, where Robert 
worked, and I went to see her every Sunday night, as 
the accepted calling night in the country. 

Late one Sunday night in the early fall, when I 
returned home I found Glandell waiting up for me, 
which was very unusual, as he generally retired early, 

"Did you cut grass for the horses to-day?" he 
asked, meeting me at the gate. 

"I wasn't hired to cut grass on Sunday," I replied 
"and if you wait for me to cut it the horses will go 
without." 

"Well, if that's all you care about the horses," he 
said, "you can get out of here.'* 



72 Work in a New Place. 

Naturally that made me very angry, as I did about 
as much work every week as could be crowded in, and 
I figured that I should not be expected to do more than 
the general run of chores on Sunday. I told him so 
very plainly, and turned around and left for the Quid's 
place. As a result I lost my pay for the whole sum- 
mer, Glandell not having paid me at the end of each 
month. Mr. Oulds gladly received me and asked me 
to stay there until I found a new place. 

I was not long idle, however, as I soon got a place 
with Mr. Walker, a man in the same business as 
Glandell, marketing. When I arrived at the market 
the first morning, I took a stand next to that of Glan- 
dell, and before the day was fairly started I had dis- 
posed of all my load, m.ostly to old customers of Glan- 
dell. Glandell was there himself that day, not having 
found a man to take my place, and when I was ready 
to start home, I noticed him loading up most of his 
stuff to return home, having sold barely half of it. 

When I got a short way down the street I heard 
some one driving rapidly behind me. I looked around 
and there was Glandell, coming at full speed. I 
whipped up. but he had a better horse than I, and he 
rapidly gained on me. Just before I reached the toll 
gate, I heard a ffower pot sing by my head. I looked 
around just in time to dodge another, and I decided it 
was getting too warm to ride that way. I got down 
in front of the dash-board, and kept the horse going as 
fast as he could make it, which I must admit was not 
half enough to suit me just then — a 2:30 horse was 
what I needed. 



Work in a New Place. 73 

As I passed through the toll gate on the run, the 
gate keeper ran out and shut down the gate, and Glan- 
dell could barely stop his horse in time to prevent 
breaking the gate. The toll tender would not let him 
through until I had gotten almost home, and thus 
probably saved me a good trouncing, as Glandell was a 
much larger man than I, and I had no hankering for a 
trial of conclusions with him. 

That evening Mr. Walker went to town and got 
out a warrant for Glandell and he was arrested. He 
sent for his brother to go on his bond, but as his broth- 
er had no property, he was not accepted as a bonds- 
man. Then Glandell sent for an old grocer with 
whom he dealt and asked him to sign the bond. The 
grocer asked how he happened to be arrested, and 
Glandell told him. 

"You will have to look elsewhere for a bondsman," 
said the grocer after he had heard the story. "I 
wouldn't bail you after you tried to kill that lad, for 
you told me yourself not so very long ago that he was 
the best boy you ever had to work for you." 

As a result Glandell was left in jail all night and 
part of the next day. Then he agreed to settle the 
matter with me by paying me all my back wages — 
which I was mighty glad to receive — and signed a bond 
to keep the peace. 

He never came to market again while I was there., 
but sent his wife who was a pleasant little woman and 
she had always been kind to me. So when I would 
sell my daily load of stuff I used to turn in and help 
Mrs. Glandell dispose of her stuff. We got to be 



74 Work in a New Place. 

very good friends, but I don't suppose her belligerent 
husband ever heard how often I prevented him losing 
a good share of his market day profits. 

While going to market I got well acquainted with 
the New Market Fire Company lads, whose fire house 
was close to the market house. Being a protestant 
Irishman, I was somewhat of an Orangeman in those 
days, though to-day neither religion or politics interests 
me much so long as I can make a comfortable living 
and keep my health I am satisfied with the way this 
world is running and I am not going to bother with 
the next for a long while yet, I hope. But one St. 
Patrick's Day I decided to have a little sport at the 
expense of the Irish. I made a paddy out of potatoes, 
borrowed a ladder from the fire company and put the 
paddy on top of the fish shed. Then I awaited devel- 
opments. 

Most of the women who' sold fish under the shed 
were Irish Catholics. They soon saw the paddy, and 
in about a minute all were gathered around the place 
with their sleeves rolled up, as wrathy a lot of old 
dames as it has ever been my pleasure to see. 

They went to the fire house to get a ladder, but the 
firemen would not allow them to have the ladderS; 
telling them they were not to be taken from the build- 
ing except in case of fire. 

"If you set fire to the building we might take the 
ladders out," said one of the men. But the women 
seemed to think setting fire to the biulding a little too 
serious, and the paddy stayed there all day long. 



Work in a New Place. 75 

The fish Ibusiness was very poor that day, as too 
much time was spent by the women cursing the boys 
who had played the trick on them. As for myself, I 
was very careful to keep out of range, as I would cer- 
tainly have been accused of the trick if I had appeared 
where they could get at me. 

A man named Carroll who lived close to Mr. 
Walker's kept slaves, and one day two of them robbed 
the house and ran away. Carroll called out all the 
neighbors and we followed the dogs in a genuine man- 
hunt. Late that night the dogs located the runaways 
in a tree. The blacks would not come down, so we 
cut the tree and let them fall. We led the slaves back 
to Carroll's farm, and he gave each of us five dollars re- 
ward for their capture. 

Finally I decided to come north. I never did like 
to be around where there were slaves, as I thought it 
cheapened labor, and as I had to work, I wanted to 
work where it was considered the proper thing, rather 
than a mere necessity to gain a livelihood. I had 
heard of Pittsburg, and had been told it was going to 
be a great city, so I made up my mind to leave Balti- 
more. It was a long journey, but was well worth the 
trouble, and I have never regretted the change. It 
took five nights and five days to make the trip. There 
being two of us, one would drive while the other slept, 
and we made what was in those days called excellent 
time. 

It was in the fall of 1845 that I landed in the city 
with $27 in my pocket, but as that was far better than 



76 The Pittsburg of 1845. 

wJien I landed in Baltimore^ I still had reasons to re- 
joice, poor as was my tinancial standing. 

O- - 

CHAPTER XX. 
The Pittsburg of 1845. 

In the year 1845, when I arrived in the city, Pitts- 
burg was a town oi about 3,000 people, built along the 
Allegheny and Monongahela rivers. The town did 
not then extend above Market street and the balance of 
the now prosperous and growing city was farmland 
and wilderness. The stage station was across from 
where Kleber's piano factory is now located, on Fifth 
avenue, just above Market. A part of what is now 
the Kleber building was the first large building above 
Market street. It was built by A. A. Mason, as a dry 
goods store, but it was so remote from the balance of 
the city that the people would not go so far through 
the mud, and Mason finally failed for want of custom- 
ers. The place was afterward bought by George R. 
White, who remodeled it and enlarged it and he used 
it as a dry goods store. Meanwhile the town had 
grown up to the store and Mr. White made money on 
the deal. 

All the streets and roads were closed with toll 
gates in those days, and there was a toll gate on Fourth 
street road, (now Fifth avenue) where the jail now 
stands, and another on Penn avenue at Eleventh street, 
where the canal crossed the street toward the river. 






ftlli^illi 
HJll-fl'PF 

liilliKliflll I .»L V 




THE OLD FULTON BELL FOUNDRY. 

Corner of First Avenue and Chauncey Lane— *^ Andy Fulton/^ 
proprietor, grandfather of Delinquent Tax Collector^ Andy Fulton. 
He was a friend in need— hundreds of times to the author. 



The Pittsburg of 1845. 77 

The resident part of the city was on Penn avenue, and 
the wealthy portion of the population all lived on a 
couple of blocks. There was no such wealth in 1845 
as there is in Pittsburg now, but I doubt if there is 
more happiness than in those days, when life was not 
so strenous and extravagance was unknown. People 
lived according to their means, and there was no effort 
at great display. The great homes of that day would 
not now be called extravagant for men on salary to- 
day. 

Where Union station now stands were two ceme- 
teries. Catholics and Protestant, and out about where 
Twenty-eight street now is was a brewery in what was 
then considered far in the country. There were no 
great manufacturing plants, the churches were small 
compared with those of to-day, and as for a theater, 
nothing was considered more remote. People had sim- 
pler lives and simpler pleasures, and instead of the 
drama and the opera were satisfied with the debating 
society and the singing school for their evening amuse- 
ments away from home. 

Then, as now, iron was the chief industry of the 
city, but it was then hardly a promise of what it has 
become. There was an iron foundry located at what 
is now the corner of Fifth avenue and Smithfield street, 
owned by Billman & Garrison, Pennock's foundry on 
the Allegheny river above the canal, and Knapp & 
Totten's foundry above this, which was afterwards 
turned into a factory for the manufacture of cannon. 
James Marshall also had a foundry in the same neigh- 
borhood, and Penny's foundry was on the Mononga- 



78 The Pittsburg of 1845. 

hela river, just above the present location of the Balti- 
more & Ohio depot. 

There was also a prophesy of the coming of the 
great glass industry of the city. The glass factories 
were located along the Monongahela river. Wm. 
Phillips' factory was located at the corner of what is 
now Try and Second avenue, but was then known as 
the Second street road. The Adams glass works was 
located where the Baltimore & Ohio depot now stands, 
and on the South Side were located Ihmsen & McKee's 
factory and Wm. McKee & Bros.' factory. These 
were small affairs compared with those of to-day, 
but were then considered great evidence of the city's 
wealth and prosperity. 

There were also several rolling mills. There was 
one on the Monongahela river above Tenth street., 
where the Baltimore & Ohio railroad tracks now run, 
another on the South Side, and one owned by James 
Woods in the West End on the Ohio river. Wm. B. 
Lyons' was at what is called Sligo, on the Mononga- 
hela river, and Spang's was Pine creek. The Schoen- 
berg mill was then located where it now stands, at 
Sixteenth and Try streets, belovv^ Penn avenue. 

The old Monongahela house was the great hotel of 
the day. It was located where the present hotel now 
stands, but was burned the same year in which I ar- 
rived in the city. In front of the hotel was the only 
piece of paved street in the town. All the balance was 
the natural road, and in bad weather hauling was al- 
most impossible because of the deep mud. 



The Pittsburg of 1845. 



79 



I was about i8 years old then, and have, it will 
be seen, lived in Pittsburg— or at least had my home 
here, though I have been away at times for a few 
months— for 58 years. In that time I have watched 
the city's growth from a village to one of the chief 
cities of the world, and I am proud that I can say that 
I have been a small factor in the city's growth. After 
I became a contracting builder I had many contracts 
for the building up of the city, and there are many 
buildings now standing that I helped to erect long be- 
fore the Civil War. So that even though my fortunes 
have not kept pace with some of those who went into 
the iron trade or became famous as bankers and finan- 
ciers, I can at least feel assured that I have done my 
small part, and in my own way I have prospered with 
the prosperity of the city, and not in any way at the 
expense of that prosperity. Rather, with every nail 
driven by me or by men whom I employed added to 
the growth of the city, and brought just that much 
nearer the great and wonderful city of the present day. 
And though I am now a man of near four score years 
and the great majority of my friends of other days have 
crossed the river, I am still active in my business and 
hope for many more years in which to watch the home 
of my mature choice grow larger and in prosperity and 
fame. 

I have many memories of the leading men of those 
days and all were my friends. And as I see their 



80 A THal at Dry Goods Business. 

children and grandchildren now the men of affairs, it 
recalls some of the characteristics of their ancestors 
who built the city on a foundation, perfect as the rock 
of Gibraltar and as ever lasting. 

O 

CHAPTER XXI. 

A Trial at Dry Goods Business. 

Work was not as plentiful, nor pay as high, in 1845 
as it is to-day. None of the trades which I had learned 
in the West Indies were of any use to me m Pittsburg, 
and I had to begin all over again at whatever came to 
hand. I started out to hunt for work as soon as I ar- 
rived and first visited the stores, as they were the most 
prominent places visible to the eye. At last I got a 
job as porter for George R. White's dry goods store. 
The pay was only two dollars and a half a week, but I 
could not be very particular about the work or pay, as 
I must needs make a living. Mr. White wanted me to 
board at the Farmers' Hotel, run by Mrs. Little, on 
Ferry street, so that I could influence the farmers who 
stopped there to come to the store to do their trading. 
As a result it took all the money I sfot each week to 
pay my board bill and I didn't see where I was coming 
out much ahead by workinsr for that much. My 
twenty-seven dollars soon dwindled down to seven, 
and I saw that It was time somethlne was done, so I 
went to Mr. White and told Mm I would have to have 
more money or look for another fob. He said he could 




GEO, R, WHITE. 
First friend in Pittsburg of tlie Author* A strong friend in his early 
youth* He first employed him as an arrand boy in J 845. A friend who 
never failed Mr. Owens as long as he lived. In death he is not forgotten. 



A Trial at Dry Goods Business. 81 

not see how I could not get along, since other boys 
could, but I told him other boys lived with their 
parents, while I must pay all my own way and pay 
board every week. He asked me how much more I 
would have to have, and I told him if he paid my board 
at the hotel and gave me the same wages I could get 
along. 

"Have you ever brought any trade from the hotel?" 
he asked. 

''You'll have to ask the manager that question," I 
told him. 

So he called in the manager, Mr. Loy — who after- 
ward became a partner with Mr. White — and Mr. Loy 
told him I had brought a great many people to the 
store from the hotel. Then Mr. White agreed to con- 
tinue to pay me the same wages and pay my board at 
the hotel. 

I got along very well at the store. One of my 
duties was to carry packages to the homes of custom.- 
ers and another was occasionally to go out collecting. 
One day Mr. White told me to go to James Stewart's 
farm at Squirrel hill to collect a bill that had been 
owing for a long time. I took the stage coach as he 
directed me and asked the driver where to get off and 
find the place. The driver gave me the wrong direc- 
tion, and I walked nearly all day without finding the 
place. Late in the afternoon I met a man who said he 
thought Stewart lived down the river about five miles. 
I was then near the present site of Carnegie and I was 
soaked through, as it was raining and snowing. Still 
I was not ready to give up, so I started again and it 



82 A TWal at Dry Goods Business. 

proved in the right direction. I found Stewart's home 
just at nightfall and he told me to tell Mr. White that 
he was coming to town with a load of wheat the fol- 
lowing day and would come in and pay the bill. 

I asked Mr. Stewart for my supper, but he refused 
to give it to me, though I offered to pay him for it. 
There was nothing for me to do but walk back to the 
city, hungry, wet and fatigued as I was, so I left the 
place in anything but an enviable frame of mind. 

It was late at night when I reached the hotel, but 
Mrs. Little gave me a good supper, and I was glad to 
get to bed. I was so tired out that I did not awake 
until 9 o'clock the next morning. When I went to the 
store Mr. White chided me for being late, but when I 
explained my troubles of the day before that made it 
all right. When I told him Stewart was coming in and 
would pay the bill, Mr. White said : 

"Stewart has been coming in with a load of wheat 
for the last two years and has not arrived yet. If he 
does not come here to-day I want you to take a horse 
and ride down there and stay till you get the money." 

As usual Stewart failed to put in an appearance as 
he had promised, so the next day Mr. White told me 
to ride out to the farm. When I reached the farm I tied 
my horse and went and asked for Mr. Stewart. His 
wife told me he was not at home and would not return 
until evening. I saw I was in for a long stay and pre- 
pared for a siege. I told the woman I would stay there 
until the bill was paid. 

Seeing a little stable near the house, I put the horse 
in a stall and gave him some oats out of the bin. T 



r 




STORE OF GEO. WHITE. 

3JJ Market Street — "Where Mr. Owens "Worked as an Errand Boy — 
J847-8. Mr. "White was a Life Long Friend of the Author. A True 
Friend in Need. 



A Tlrial at Dry Goods Business. 83 

went out of the stable for a few minutes, and when I 
looked in again to see how the horse was getting along 
the feed trough was empty. I thought the horse must 
be a pretty fast eater, but I put more oats in the 
trough. Then I went out of the stable and saw fresh 
footprints. I quickly walked back and caught Stew- 
art taking the oats from the trough. Then I had to 
fight him away all the time till the horse had eaten all 
his feed. 

When the horse had finished the oats Stewart 
started for the house, and I followed. We both went 
into the house and sat down in the parlor. We had 
been there some time when Mrs. Stewart came in. She 
only stayed a few moments then went out, and soon 
her husband followed her. I soon heard the dishes 
rattling, and my appetite told me it must be dinner 
time. I decided that if I was to get anything to eat 
I would have to go after it, as they were not likely to 
bring it to me. I walked out and picked up two pieces 
of bread and began to eat. 

"You are most mightly unmannerly," said Stew- 
art. 

"I don't propose to go hungry just because you 
have not the manners to invite me to dinner," I replied. 

When Stewart was through with his dinner he fol- 
lowed me out of the house and we began to quarrel. 

"Jim stop fighting with that boy," shouted his 
wife. "You'll kill him next. Give him what money 
there is in the house and let him go." 

"I haven't any money to give him," said Stewart. 



84 A Trial at Dry Goods Business. 

"I have some butter money in the house I will give 
him," she replied, and she went into the house and 
brought out $33. After Stewart had counted it three or 
four times he handed it to me and asked for a receipt. 
I told him I had a receipt for the whole bill in my 
pocket, but I wouldn't give it to him till I got all the 
money. 

Stewart declared he would have me arrested for 
getting money on false pretenses and started off, think- 
ing to scare me, but it didn't and I stayed right there, 
determined to get all that was coming to me. Stewart 
did not come back until 9 o'clock that night, and he 
found me still there. He had a bag full of pennies, 
which he counted over till 11 o'clock. Then I had to 
count them, and I found the full amount there : I ask- 
ed him for the bag to carry the pennies. 

"1 don't owe you the bag," he said, and would not 
give it to me. I filled my pockets with the pennies, and 
still had a great quantity of them left. So I tied up 
part of them in my handkerchief and put the balance 
in my hat. 

Stewart would not help me on the horse, and I had 
to lead him to a bank where I could get on him without 
using my hands. Then I had to allow the horse to walk 
all the way home for fear of spilling the pennies from 
my hat. 

It was well for me that the clerks were taking 
stock and were working late that night, for it was 
long after midnight when I rode up to the store. I 
called for Mr. Loy, and he came to the door and saw 
me sitting on his horse, bare headed and with my hat 




FARMERS HOTEL. 

Fourth Avenue and Ferry Street. The x shows the room where the late 
Hon. Edwin M. Stanton, (Secretary of "War under Lincoln )t and Mr» Owens 
roomed— J847-8. Mr. Stanton, at that time, was studying law with Shaler 
and Umstad, and Mr. Owens was errand boy at Geo. "Whitens store, SJJ Mar- 
ket Street. 



A Trial at Dry Goods Business. 85 

full of pennies. He had a good laugh at my expense, 
but finally relieved me of my burden, and I rode the 
horse to the stable and went home to bed. 

The next morning when I was brushing the shelves 
Stewart came in and walked past me without looking. 
He asked for Mr. White and was shown into the office. 
After a while Mr. White sent for me and I went into the 
office. Mr. White pulled a chair up next to him and I 
sat down. 

"Jimniie, Mr. Stewart tells me you acted very 
badly at his house yesterday," he said. 

"If you are going to side with that old fool, I'll 
quit right now," I said getting mad at the first men- 
tion of the affair. 

"Don't be so fast with your temper," he said. 
"Tell me everything that happened." 

So I told him all about it, and Mr. Loy came in and 
told him. how I arrived with my hat full of pennies and 
that ended the affair with Mr. Jimmie Stewart. Mr. 
White told Mr. Loy to give me the $33 I got in bills as 
a present, and to take me down to a tailor's shop and 
get me a suit of clothes oflf the best piece of goods in 
stock. 

As I got almost half of the amount of the bill I 
considered that I was doing pretty well for myself 
as a collector for the store, and felt pretty well repaid 
for the trouble Stewart had given me. 



86 An Evening with Spiritualism. 

CHAPTER XXII. 

An Evening With Spiritualism. 

One summer evening, Jimmie White, son of the 
proprietor of the store where I virorked, asked me td 
go with him to a spiritualistic seance. I got permis- 
sion from the manager, and we started. 

The spirits were said to be corraled at the home of 
Charles Taylor at the corner of Fourth street and 
Penn avnue. We went and rapped at the door and 
Taylor came to the door. 

"We want to see Mrs. Coe," said Jimmie. 

"All right come in," said Taylor, and he ushered 
us into the parlor. 

After giving us chairs, he went out and soon came 
back with a large plate of fruit and told us to help our- 
selves. We soon had the fruit looking scarce, and were 
just putting on the finishing touches when Mrs. Coe's 
husband came in. Mrs. Coe was from Boston and she 
was creating quite a furror in Pittsburg with her read- 
ings and warnings from the spirit world, and every- 
body was anxious to see her in action. 

Jimmie told Mr. Coe what we wanted and he went 
out to see his wife. In a few moments he returned 
and said she had had one seance during the early even- 
ing, and preferred to not disturb the spirits again so 
soon, as it was very fatigueing for them to be called on 
so often to rap and rattle around heavy tables. 

Jimmie and I were both unwilling to overwork 
the gfhosts, so we made our adieus and left. The house 



An Evening with Spiritualism. 87 

was built high and with a long pair of steps leading to 
the street. I ran down the steps, then looked around 
and saw Jimmie come sliding down the bannister 
"belly-flopper." We both began to giggle, and the peo- 
ple in the house heard us, and came running to the 
door. 

**Cbme right back here," shouted Taylor. "You 
can't laugh at us. We'll prove to you that there are 
spirits." 

"We weren't laughing at you," declared Jimmie. 

"Yes you were," said Taylor, "and you have to 
come in and let us prove to you that the spirits do com- 
municate with us." 

"All right, let's go back," I said. I had started 
out to see the spirits and I wanted to get what I went 
after. 

When we got into the house we were ushered into 
the dining room where we found forty persons sitting 
around the long dining room table. They were having 
a seance, and evidently did not want us in, but in- 
vited us rather than have us go away as scoffers. Mrs. 
Coe was seated at the head of the table. They made 
room for Jimmie and I, but did not allow us to sit 
together. I was placed between Bob Wilson and a 
woman through whom the spirits were telling Bob all 
about his father and mother in heaven. The subject 
paid no attention to anything around the room, and 
Mrs. Coe said she had no physical feeling for any one 
but her. 

After Wilson's parents had told him all they knew 
about heaven, Mrs. Coe said she would cause the 



88 An Evening witli Spiritualism. 

spirits to rap three times on the table to tell her that 
all the woman had said was true. Everything was 
quiet, and I got down on the floor to see what the 
spirits who were to do the rapping looked like. 

**You must all sit up and join hands," said Mrs. 
Coe. 

As I was between Wilson and the subject, I took 
hold of his hand on one side, and the limp and ap- 
parently lifeless hand of the subject on the other. I 
wanted to see if she were as dead to physical feeling 
as Mrs. Coe said she was, so I got a good grip on her 
hand, and gave it a squeeze that almost broke the 
bones. She was out of her trance in an instant, let 
out a yell you could hear in the next block and 
jumped so high I thought her head would hit the ceil- 
ing. 

That ended the attempts at table rapping, but 
Mrs. Coe, though she was evidently much annoyed 
by the incident, told us to sit back and she would 
have the spirits walk the table along the room. I 
kept my eyes on the table, but it never moved. I 
guess the spirits were under the table and were afraid 
to get active for fear some one would see them. 

''There is a devil in the party," at last Mrs. Ceo 
declared, "and the spirits will not come out." 

"Yes and Jimmie Owens is the devil," shouted 
Bob Wilson. 

By common consent I was voted the devil, and 
the seance broke up right there. 

Mrs, Coe remained in Pittsburg some tim.e after 
that, but Jimmie White and I were never allowed to 



I Meet More Home Friends. 89 

attend a seance. Mrs. Coe convinced her followers 
that I was possessed of a devil, and Charley Taylor 
never would have anything to do with me after that. 
If he were coming the street and saw me, he would 
cross the road in order not to meet me. 



-O- 



CHAPTER XXIII. 
I Meet More Home Friends. 

For six months I was working for Mr. White, 
and almost every day I was sent to the dress making 
establishment of Mrs. Scott and Mrs. Sands with pack- 
ages. They always knew me as Jimmie, and always 
treated me as a welcome caller — perhaps because I 
was always prompt with goods they needed. One 
morning when I carried in a package it was bitterly 
cold and Mrs. Scott, seeing that my hands were red 
from the cold, stirred up the fire. 

"Come over here and sit by the fire and get warm^ 
Jimmie," she said. "You are almost frozen. 

Then she sat down by me and we talked about 
things in general. Though I was i8 years old, I was 
small for my age, and people seemed to still consider 
me a little boy. 

"Where were you born, Jimmie?" Mrs. Scott 
finally asked me. 

"County Derry, Ireland," I replied. 

"Why, that is where I was born," she exclaimed. 



90 I Meet More Home Friends. 

"We ought to be old friends. What is your family 
name ?" 

"Owens." 

"Do your people still live in County Derry?" 

"No, they moved to County Entrim, then to Bel- 
fast." 

Mrs. Scott looked at me quisically for a moment, 
then she said: 

"Jimmie, you are my own sister's son." 

Then she asked me all sorts of questions, to prove 
that she was right, asked me if I were the boy that ran 
away, and when I said I was, she told me they all 
thought I had been lost at sea as they had never heard 
from me. She said she had not heard from my mother 
since she came to America, and then I told her the 
whole story of finding my mother and brother Mat- 
thew in Jamaica, and of the death of my sister and 
mother there. 

"You have another aunt in the next room, Jim- 
mie," she said and she called Mrs. Sands in to see the 
lost boy of her sister. Neither could believe at first 
that I was Irish, the climate of Jamaica having made 
me as yellow as a tanney, but after a few questions 
they were convinced that I was really the runaway 
boy from Belfast. 

And the two aunts were not all. I learned that 
I had an uncle working in Mitchell's foundry, and that 
my sister, married and with four children around the 
hearthstone, was living on Penn avenue. 

That night there was a family reunion. We all 
got together and told over again the story of the twelve 



I Meet More Home Friends. 91 

years in which we were parted. It was a happy 
evening, and was almost morning when we parted for 
the night. But there were many such evenings, and 
we never tired of listening to our series of adventures. 

Soon I went to live with my sister, and remained 
there for several months, but one day we quarreled 
about a girl I thought pretty well of, and I left and 
went to live at Calhoun's on Fourth street. I had not 
been at Calhoun's very long until I was taken ill. Dr. 
Irwin was called in, but he did not seem to do me any 
good, and after a few days, in which I got worse in- 
stead of better, I asked them to send for some other 
doctor. So they called in Dr. Dickson, of Allegheny. 
Every one was very kind to me while I was sick, and 
I was not allowed to want for anything. When I 
got better I went to the store and Mr. White gave me 
$ioo and told me to pay my doctor bills. 

I first called on Dr. Irwin and asked him for his 
bill. 

"You owe me $75," he said after looking over his 
books. 

"I'll give you $25, notwithstanding you gave me 
the wrong medicine and nearly killed me," I replied, 

"Seventy-five or nothing," he said. 

"All right, then, it's nothing," I replied, getting 
up to go. 

That brought him down to a $25 basis, and we set- 
tled. I got a receipt in full, and left him. 

Then I went to see Dr. Dickson 

"I have no one of your name on my books," he 
told me. 



92 I Meet More Home Friends. 

"Don't you remember the boy you treated at Cal- 
houn's?" I asked him. 

"Oh, yes, I remember you/' he replied. "But 
you are an orphan boy, and I never charge anything 
for attending such lads." 

I told him I had paid Dr. Irwin $25, and wanted 
to give him at least as much, but he would not take it. 

So I took the $75 back to Mr. White, but he told 
me to keep it to buy myself some clothes. 

After I got able to be around town, though still 
not able to work, my sister, who had nursed me all the 
time I was sick, asked me to come back to live with 
her, which I did. As soon as I got strong enough 
to go to work again I decided to use the $75 to bring 
Matthew to Pittsburg, so I went to Baltimore and 
brought him back with me and got him a place to learn 
the boiler making trade with Mr. Barnhill. We both 
boarded with my sister. 

When Matthew arrived we had another little fam- 
ily reunion, my two aunts and my uncle coming to 
sister's house to see what their other nephew had 
grown to look like. Mrs. Scott and Mrs. Sands 
would never tire of hearing the story of our wander- 
ings in the West Indies. 

Mrs. Scott was the mother of James B. Scott, now 
living in Pittsburg, and Mrs. Sands, the mother of the 
Rev. John Sands, of Philadelphia. 



Another Chapter About Ghosts. 93 

CHAPTER XXIV. 
Another Chapter About Ghosts. 

While Matthew was working for Mr. Barnhill at 
the boiler shop, we used to have some great times. 
Mr. Barnhill was very friendly with all the lads in the 
neighborhood, and he allowed us to use the yards and 
office for a play ground. We held debating society 
in the office, and we had some hot debates on the sub- 
jects, "Resolved that a gun is of more use to man than 
a dog," and "Resolved, that pusuit is a greater pleas- 
ure than possession." All those old standbys that I 
believe are worked in the country debating societies to 
this day were threshed out by our crowd, and we de- 
bated them over and over again. 

But we sometimes tired of our literary efforts and 
spent the evening in play in the yards. We also had 
to listen to many tales of adventure told us by the 
nightwatchman, an Englishman who was a great brag- 
gart. To hear him tell it, he had been in all the great 
battles his country had fought for a century, and he 
had more to do with the defeat of Napoleon than had 
the Iron Duke himself. He talked so much and gave 
such vivid descriptions of things he had done in battle 
that we decided to see how he liked ghosts. A man 
who had braved the storm of shot and shell of the 
French army under Napoleon should certainly not fear 
any such things as a mere ghost, but we had our doubts 
about all this valor he told us about. 

By telling a few ghost stories we discovered that 
the old fellow was a thorough believer in this preter- 



94 Another Cliapter About Ghosts. 

natural. We kept up the ghost stories until he was 
afraid to go out after dark unless he carried a gun — as 
if mere leaden bullets would harm spirits. 

One night I got into a boiler with a hammer, and 
the other boys went to the office and told ghost stories 
to the old fellow. Pretty soon he had to make his 
rounds to see that everything was safe, and he should- 
ered his old shotgun and left the office. The boys al- 
lowed him to get a good start, then same out and hid 
near where I was located inside the boiler. 

Soon the old fellow came along, whistling to keep 
up his courage, and when he got just opposite my boil- 
er, I gave it one blow with the hammer that made a 
noise like the crack of doom. I followed it up with 
a rattling sound and then began to groan as though I 
were in mortal agony. The frightened Englishman 
let out a yell that could be heard a mile and ran out of 
the yard as fast as his legs could carry him. 

When I got around to the office he was telling the 
boys that there was a ghost in the yard. He had not 
only heard it pounding on a boiler, but had seen it. 

"It had a head like a calf," he declared, "and hoofs 
and a tail, but hands just like a human being. And 
the hammer it was using was red hot. It must have 
been hammering at the soul of some old boiler maker 
who used to work here and haunts the place, for the 
groans I heard were horrible." 

The old man would not venture out of the office 
again that night, and he declared he would not go out 




HON. EDWIN M. STANTON, 
Roommate of the Author in J 847-8. 



Two Men Who Became Famous 95 

into the yard after dark again if they would give him 
the shop. It worried him so much that he hunted up 
another place to work and left the boiler shop. 

O 

CHAPTER XXV. 
Two Men Who Became Famous. 

In the early days in Pittsburg I became friends 
with men then little more than boys, whose names 
were afterwards written high on the scroll of fame in 
their country's history. One of them was Edwin M. 
Stanton, Secretary of War in President Lincoln's cab- 
inet, and the other was James G. Blaine, "the Plumed 
Knight." 

It was while I was boarding at Mrs. Little's 
Farmers' Hotel that I met Stanton. He had come to 
Pittsburg to study law in the office of Shaler & Ump- 
stider, a firm of attorneys famous all over the west. 
That was in 1846. One evening Mrs. Little asked me 
if I objected to sharing my room with a young man 
from Ohio, who desired to board at the house. I told 
her that it depended very much on the man. 

"He's a very fine young man, a gentleman," she 
said. "He has come here to study law." 

"I want to see him first," I replied, and she pointed 
out to me a quiet young fellow who was sitting at the 
supper table. 

"All right, put him in." I told her, and a little later 
she introduced him to me as Mr. Stanton. 



96 Two Men Who Became Famous 

I found him very pleasant, though quiet, and not 
the wild sort of fellow that I was inclined to be, looking 
always for the fun in the world. But we got along 
famously, and for months, till I went to live with my 
sister, we occupied the same room and the same bed. 
He was very ambitious to make a good lawyer of him- 
self, and he studied hard day and night. Still, he 
would find time to talk with me, and he always seemed 
ready to listen to tales I had to tell of India, Jamaica,. 
Cuba and Ireland. The story of my season with the 
circus and the trained goat and pig seemed to amuse 
him most. But mostly I would spend my evenings 
out with the boys of my acquaintance, and he would 
be at work on his books. It was seldom that we 
could get him out on any of our harum-scarum expe- 
ditions, but when he did, he was as lively as the best. 

I watched the career of Stanton with great pleas- 
ure, knowing him as I did, and when he was in Wash- 
ington during the trying times of the Civil War, the 
administration had no more loyal supporter in the 
country than this same old room m.ate of Edwin M. 
Stanton. The memory of his friendship, short though 
it was, is one of the brightest spots in my life, though 
perhaps I did not then realize what a great mind I was 
given the opportunity to know. 

My meeting with Mr. Blaine was shortly after I 
met Stanton, and while I was rooming with him. It 
was while I was working in White's dry goods store. 
One day Mr. Loy gave me a package of blankets to 
deliver to the home of the Rev. Mr. Bryan, a Cumber- 
land Presbyterian minister living on Second avenue. 




HON. JAMES G. BLAINE, 
Friend of the Attthor. 



Two Men Who Became Famous 97 

I took up a large bundle so that Mrs. Bryan could pick 
out the ones she wanted. 

While we were examining the blankets in the back 
parlor a gentleman came to the door and asked for Mr. 
Bryan. In a few moments the minister returned and 
said a young man named James Blaine was there to be 
married, and he asked me to go over and bring David 
and Journal Bell to act as witnesses. I went for the 
witnesses while Mr. Blaine went to the Monongahela 
House for his bride. I soon returned with David 
Bell, but Journal could not be found, so as three wit- 
nesses were necessary they asked me to act as one of 
them. So I remained for the wedding, and after the 
ceremony was performed and the certificate of marriage 
signed, Mr. Blaine invited us all to go with them to the 
Monongahela House for a wedding supper. 

I took the blankets that were not wanted back to 
the store, and was then given permission to go to the 
supper. It was a jolly party. Mr. Bryan and Mr. 
Blaine vying with each other in witty sallies. I was 
mostly a listener, and in fact, all of us were too well 
pleased to hear the brilliant talk of the minister and 
the young bridegroom to offer much in the way of con- 
versation ourselves. We spent a most pleasant and 
happy evening, and the following day Mr. Blaine and 
his bride, after a call at the home of the minister, went 
to their home. 

Years after, when Mr. Blaine was a candidate for 
President, the story was started that he was a Catholic, 
but I knew better, and knew better than anyone living 
the story of his marriage by a Cumberland Presbyter- 



98 I Learn Several Trades. 

ian minister. He had been a member of the Catholic 
church he would have been married by a priest, instead 
of coming to Mr. Bryan. I was a strong supporter of 
Mr. Blaine for the Presidency, and everywhere I went 
I was careful to circulate the story of the wedding at 
the home of the Rev. Mr. Bryan, as an offset to the 
story that Blaine was a Catholic. 

I wanted to see Mr. Blaine elected President, be- 
cause I considered him one of the greatest men in the 
country, and still cherish the memory of the young 
man and bride, at whose wedding supper I was a guest 
so many years ago. 

O 

CHAPTER XXVI. 
I Learn Several Trades. 

After several years at White's store my health 
broke down, so that the lightest work was a burden to 
me. I didn't like to give it up, as I had always been 
well treated there and the surroundings were pleasant. 
I had also made myself more valuable to the firm, and 
was getting much better pay than when I started in, 
so that I was able to have a very good time and still 
save a little money. But Mr. White recognized the 
condition of my health, and one day he came to me and 
talked about it. 

**You are a good boy in the store, Jimmie," he 
said, "but I am afraid the work does not agree with 
you. What sort of a trade would you like to learn? 




409 SECOND AVENUE, PITTSBURG. PA. 

The House Where the Late James G, Blaine was Married* 
Mr, Owens was a Witness to the Ceremony. 



I Learn Several Trades. 99 

It seems to me that you require something with more 
physical exertion and less confinement indoors." 

I agreed with him, and told him I thought I would 
like to be a plasterer. He said he would try to arrange 
the matter, and a few days later he and my uncle, 
John Scott, bound me out to James Armstrong for 
three years. 

At the end of two years Armstrong failed, and 
that released me. Meanwhile I had learned consid- 
erable about the business, and decided to try my hand 
at it on my own hook. Palmer & McCasky were the 
proprietors ot a paper store, and they were very friend- 
ly towards me. So that whenever they knew of any 
work they threw it my way. One of the first jobs 
they got me was the stucco work on a new Homeo- 
pathic hospital near Cleveland. I took some men 
with me from Pittsburg. We boarded at the Union 
Hotel, and one night a few weeks later, after we had 
become acquainted and were going around quite a bit, 
we went to a dance, and when we returned to the 
hotel early in the morning, we found only ashes, as it 
had burned down during the night. What had been 
saved out of the fire was taken to the Marine Hospital, 
and we at once started for the hospital to see if any- 
thing belonging to us had been saved. On the way 
we met a man wearing my overcoat. 

"Hold up, there, man, you've got on my coat," I 
shouted to him as he seemed anxious to get away 
without passing the time of day to us. 

"Your coat, nothing," he replied," and when I in- 
sisted he threatened to thrash me. I told him that I 

a.ofC. 



100 I Learn Several Trades. 

could prove the coat was mine, because there was $35 
in bills in the inside pocket. The man with me 
promised to stand by me, and we waded in and took the 
coat off his back. Then I put it on, and reaching into 
the inside pocket I pulled out my little roll of bills, 
thus proving my property, and the fellow made off, 
glad to escape arrest. 

When the trustees of the Homeopathic Hospital 
learned of the fire they told me to come to them if I 
needed any money, but luckily I was able to get along 
without accepting their oft'er of assistance. 

After finishing the work at the hospital I plastered 
the Forest City House, and then as there was no more 
work for me there I returned to Pittsburg. Finding 
plastering slack, I again bound myself out to learn a 
trade, this time working for John Phillips, to learn 
bricklaying. I intended to learn as much about 
building trades as possible, and then go west. I had 
only been v/ith Mr. Phillips about a year when he went 
into the iron business and let us all off. 

Stoker work was then paying very good wages, 
and I bound myself out to Bassett, Blythe & Morgan- 
roth to learn that trade. I did not stay with them 
very long, and when I left them I formed a partner- 
ship with a man named Frazier, to do contracting in 
building. Frazier died soon after we went together, 
and I bought his share of the business from his estate 
and then set up for myself. That was practically the 
real beginning of my business career. From that 



Joe Barker's Campaign. 101 

time on, for more than forty years I have been engaged 
in building work, and the city is dotted with evidences 
of my industry. 

O^ 

CHAPTER XXVII. 
Joe Barker's Campaign. 

Politics was as strenuous before the war as to-day. 
Everybody seemed interested in the result of every 
election, and there was never the great mass of people 
so disinterested as not to vote, as is the case to-day. 
Suffrage is a God given right, and every man then 
realized that it was his duty, not only to deposit his 
ballot on election day, but to work for the man he 
thought would best fill the office for which he was a 
candidate. 

A-long in the early Fifties, Joe Barker was a unique 
character in Pittsburg. Some said he was crazy, 
others said he was only a crank who wanted to make a 
living on the credulous people, and his main point was 
to escape hard work. 

Joe's chief hobby was his hatted for the Catholics. 
Wherever he could draw a crowd he would harrangue 
the people on his favorite topic. His chief lieutenant 
was a Presbyterian preacher named Kirtland who had 
been silenced by the church, but the silencing of the 
church had little effect on his vocal organs. Joe would 
make the speeches and then call on Kirtland to prove 
all he said. 



102 Joe Barker's Campaign. 

When the boys of the town would see Joe and 
Kirtland coming along Liberty avenue they would fol- 
low, shouting and cheering, and soon Joe would reach 
the court house or cathedral, and mounting the steps 
would make a speech, and at the end of each telling 
point would shout, 

''That's true, isn't it Kirtland?" 

"Every word of it," Kirtland would reply, ''and I 
have the papers here to prove it." 

Then Kirtland or Joe would take a paper from a 
bundle they always carried, but when any of the boys 
would look over the paper they would find only some 
old publication with no reference whatever to the point 
Joe wanted to make. 

Joe became more and more of a general nuisance, 
until finally the Catholics had him arrested for speak- 
ing from the Cathedral steps. The judge sent him to 
jail for thirty days. When he got out, he was more 
reckless than ever, and also more noisy, so he was 
again arrested and this time the judge sent him up for 
nine months. 

While Joe was in for his second term, the spring 
campaign of 185 1 opened, and some one nominated Joe 
for Mayor. It might have been intended for a joke, 
and it may have been in all seriousness, but the young 
fellows of the city took it as a fine joke, and they 
started out electioneering for Joe with all their enthu- 
siasm. The idea seemed to strike everybody, and 
hard as the opposition could work, they could not over- 
come the boom of Joe Barker, and he was elected by a 
large majority, 



Joe Barker's Campaign. 103 

It was lo o'clock at night when the returns had 
all been counted and it was assured that the next 
Mayor of the city was then languishing in durance vile. 
The young fellows of the city were enthusiastic over 
their victory and went marching up and down the 
streets. Finally it occurred to them that Joe would 
enjoy being in on the jollifycation, so the crowd head- 
ed for the jail on the run. The leader demanded the 
prisoner, and the Sheriff refused to deliver him. Then 
we secured heavy pieces of wood and started to break 
down the jail door. 

The Sheriff, seeing that we were in earnest, open- 
ed the door, and Joe was brought out. Some of the 
fellows raised him up on their shoulders and the tri- 
umphant procession started for the Mayor's office, then 
located on Third avenue. 

We found Mayor Guthrie sitting in his office, so 
we gathered him up in our arms and soon had him sit- 
ting on the curb outside, while Joe occupied the official 
chair. All that night we kept Joe there, listening to 
his speeches and cheering him, but in the morning the 
court informed us that he could not become Mayor, 
even though he were legally elected, until Mayor Guth- 
rie's time expired, which would be two months later. 
So we allowed Mayor Guthrie to return to his office, 
and Joe went back to his preaching, the court signing 
an order for his legal release from jail. 

When Mayor Guthrie's term expired, Barker was 
inaugurated with all the enthusiasm we young fellows 
could muster, and his term of office started out with 
every promise of success, and though he spent his 



104 Joe Barker's Campaign. 

whole time at his official duties, and left off his preach- 
ing most of the time, still he was ever ready to make 
a speech. But his official acts were not such as to 
commend him to the voters a second time, and when 
he ran for Mayor again he was beaten by almost as 
large a vote as his majority at the first election. 

At that time it was one of the duties of the Mayor 
to look after the weights and measures at the market. 
Joe always did this himself, accompanied by two of- 
ficers. One day when in the market Barker came to a 
woman who had twenty-nine pounds of butter in her 
basket in pound prints. He weighed each one of them 
and found each a trifle light, probably caused by the 
evaporation of water after the butter had been first 
weighed the night before. Just as he was weighing 
his twenty-ninth print the woman picked up the last 
one and struck him in the face with it, saying, "Take 
it all." 

''That is good enough for the poor," said Joe, never 
paying any attention to the woman, "pick it up men." 

For the first three months Joe was a pretty good 
]Mayor, but after that he got down on every one in the 
city, apparently, and every one else seemed to be just 
as much down on him. He fought with the Council- 
men on every subject and denounced them as rogues 
and thieves, and finally had them all arrested on 
charges of misusing the public funds. Nothing ever 
came of this, however. 



Elizabetli Parkhill. 105 

Toward the last of Joe's term as Mayor he had 
scarcely a friend in the city, and nearly everybody 
seemed glad when his time was up and a reasonable 
Mayor took his place. 

O 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 
Elizabeth Parkhill. 

In the spring of 1852, there arrived in this coun- 
try a young Irish girl of rare education for a woman in 
those days. She was a typical Irish lassie, and after 
we became acquainted our mutual interest in the little 
Green Isle caused us to be much together. She was a 
niece of Mrs. Maxwell, who had brought her to Amer- 
ica. After her arrival here, Elizabeth boarded at the 
same home with me, and she worked in Dr. Avery's 
drug store. Naturally we became great friends, and 
much of our leisure time was spent together. We al- 
ways went to the lyceum meetings and singing schools 
together, and though I could not do' much in the music- 
al line, her voice always made up for any deficiency in 
mine. 

One night we went to a singing society in a church 
in Oak alley. My brother was also there with his 
"best girl." High hats were then the proper thing 
and both Matthew and I were diked out in the latest 
fashion for young dandies. If the word had been 
invented then, I suppose we would have been called 
dudes. The girls sat in the class, and we boys, who 



106 Elizabeth Parkhill. 

could not sing, sat on the opposite side of the pulpit. 
While the singing was progressing, a number of men 
from the Napkin English House came in and sat down 
behind us. Among them was Andy Simms, a pretty 
tough customenrs who had served a couple of terms in 
the penitentiary. They were all pretty well loaded with 
tamarac, and were spoiling for trouble. They soon 
began tapping our high hats as an evidence of their 
disapproval of that sort of headgear. I got up, moved 
the hats to the pew next to the pulpit and sat down 
next to them. 

I had only been sitting there a few moments when 
I looked around just in time to see Simms reach around 
another fellow and hit Matthew on the head. As 
Matthew had a felon on his finger and was unable to 
defend himself properly, I decided that it was my duty 
to rush to the rescue. I ran up to Simms, and he tried 
to rise, but before he could do so I shoved my hand 
under his chin and pushed him up against the wall. He 
happened to be right in front of the door, and when I 
began giving him all that was coming to him in the 
way of a trouncing, the door broke and he tumbled out 
into the vestibule. As he went down I landed on top 
of him with my high heeled boots and gave him a 
severe beating, leaving him cut and bleeding on the 
floor. 

When I got back into the church I found that the 
row had broken up the meeting and every one had run 
out of the front door, fearing the engine boys would 
come back in force and clean things out from the front 
to the pulpit. 



Elizabeth Parkhill. 107 

Not finding Elizabeth in the church, I decided she 
had deserted me, and I declared in my wrath if she 
was afraid to stand by me in my trouble, I would never 
go to see her again. But when I came out of the door 
there she stood waiting for me. 

"I was just going home alone," I told her. "I 
thought you had deserted me." 

"Oh, I wasn't afraid but that you'd come out all 
right," she said. "You seem to forget that T was 
brought up in Ireland, where one expects to see little 
things of that sort occasionally. And you can al- 
ways depend upon it, I'll stand by you when the wind 
is blowing." 

And she always did. That night I learned how 
much I really loved her, but I could not screw up my 
courage to tell her. But it was not long after that 
that I did tell her, and her answer made me the hap- 
piest man in Pittsburg. 

When our engagement was announced, her friends 
wondered at her choice of the rough Irish lad, when she 
could have had her pick of the finest lads of the city. 
But I don't think either of us lived to regret our choice. 
We were married on May 7, 1854, and then began the 
happiest epoch of my eventful life. I was devoted 
to my home, and my greatest sorrow was that so much 
of my time was necessarily spent away from it. But it 
was necessary to attend to business, and much of my 
work called me away from the city for months at a 
time to places where I could not take Elizabeth. 

And then came the baby. We were as proud as 
young married folks usually are, and my wife lavished 



108 Smallpox Appears. 

the full affection of her great Irish heart upon it. She 
always kept it the neatest and prettiest youngster in 
the city. People passing would stop to watch the 
little golden-haired baby, and when it began to creep 
around the hall way, they would stop and pick it up 
and love it as though it were their own. One Sunday, 
when the baby was in the hall in the front of the house, 
an old colored mammy came along, and my wife, who 
was in the back part of the house was frightened most 
to death to see the woman pick up the child. With 
a scream she ran out, only to find that the old woman 
was not trying to kidnap the child, but only wanted to 
show her love. 

When the baby grew a little older I built a balcony 
back of the house. The colored people had a church 
back in the alley, and on Sundays when they would be- 
gin to sing their old-fashioned melodies, the little girl 
would take hold of me and lead me back to hear the 
singing. There she would sit in a little chair, with 
her head cocked to one side, listening as long as the 
music lasted. 

O 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

Smallpox Appears. 

I had only been married a few months when my 
wife was stricken with smallpox, which was prevalent 
in the city at the time. I called Dr. Halleck to wait 
upon her, and he put a sort of paste on her to keep the 



Smallpox Appears. 109 

air out of the sores. This was so irritating that I 
had to tie her hands to the bed to keep her from 
scratching herself. When he came the second day to 
put the paste on her, I would not let him do it. 

"What do you know about medicine?" he demand- 
ed of me. 

"I don't know very much, perhaps," I replied, "but 
I do know that that stuff is driving my wife crazy, and 
killing her by degrees." 

So I paid the doctor off and sent him away. He 
said if she died he would not be responsible, and I told 
him I had a notion to have him arrested for trying to 
kill her. 

As soon as the doctor was gone, I went to Francis 
Bailey's drug store and asked him for two bottles of 
the finest olive oil he had. 

"What do you want the oil for?" he asked me. 

"My wife has smallpox," I told him, "and I want to 
bathe her." 

"Take the oil and go," he said handing it out and 
getting away from me. "You need not wait to pay 
for it." 

That suited me very well, as I had no great surplus 
of money about that time. When I got home, I 
bathed my wife with the oil, and she felt so refreshed 
that she slept for four hours, and from that time began 
to get better, though she was ill for weeks, and I had 
to give her most of my time, night and day, as I could 
get no one to nurse her. 

The morning after I discharged the doctor, St. 
Peter's Roman Catholic Church took fire, and the lum- 



110 Smallpox Appears. 

ber yard between my house and the church was soon 
ablaze. I stood the heat as long as I could, and then, 
as I had no one to help me fight the fire that threatened 
my house, I took m}^ wife in my arms and carried her 
up the hill to Alex. Txlalloy's house. When I appear- 
ed at the door with my wife wrapped in a blanket, 
everybody ran out of the house, and left me in full 
possession. 

The fire was kept from reaching my house, how- 
ever, and after the danger was past I got two men who 
were not afraid of the smallpox to help me carry my 
wile back home. 

At this time I had the contract to do the stucco 
work on the new cathedral which was to take the place 
of the cathedral burned a year or two before. As my 
wife was ill, and I could get no one to nurse her, I was 
crmpelied to let the work go for a time, and the com- 
rniitee in charge of the construction was growing very 
impatient. The church people wanted to dedicate 
about Christmas and it v/as getting uncomfortably 
close to that time of year. I was using the back room 
to do the casting in. Bishop O'Connor would not al- 
low them to take the contract away from me, as they 
wished to do, and told them that under the circum- 
stances it would be very unchristian. So I was given 
all the time I needed. I finally got Martha Richard- 
son to come and take care of my wife, as none of my 
relatives would do so, and I finished the work on the 
cathedral on time, though I had to push things very 
rapidly for a time. 



Smallpox Appears. Ill 

After my wife got well, I took her to live in Alle- 
gheny, and then I got the contract tO' do the stucco 
work on the Butler court house. I had taken it on a 
sub-contract, and the man who had the contract broke 
up just before I finished the work. As a result I never 
got a cent, and besides had to pay the board of the men 
working for me and their wages for the time spent in 
Butler. I did not have money enough left to pay the 
hotel bill at Butler, but Mr. Mechling told me not to 
worry, but to pa}^ it when I could. It was some time 
before I got enough money ahead to pay the bill, but 
Mr. Mechling never bothered me about it, and was 
very much pleased when I took the money up to him. 
After that I got the contract to move an old hotel from 
Hunkers to where the Cresson grounds are now lo- 
cated. I had to move the building in sections on the 
canal. Isaac M. Pinnick, who was a great business 
man in those days, got me the contract, and he was a 
firm friend from that time on, and threw many a good 
thing in my way. 

Early in 1855 I went to do the stucco work and 
plastering in a house for Mr. Ledley on the Washing- 
ton plank road. Mr. Frazier and I took the contract 
together. When we had it nearly finished, Mr. Ledley 
failed in the coal business, and this left us in very bad 
shape, as we had so recently lost all the money coming 
from the Butler court house job. I was at the house 
overseeing the work when Frazier came to me and told 
me of the failure of Ledley. We had everything done 
but the ornamental work. Frazier wanted me to quit 
right there, but I told him it w^as a fine bit of work, 



112 Smallpox Appears. 

would be a great advertisement for us and would bring 
us more business, and so ought to be finished. He in- 
sisted that he would not finish it. I offered him $500 
for his interest in the job, and he accepted it, so I had 
him drive me to Mr. White, the merchant for whom I 
had worked so long, borrowed the money, and got 
Frazier's receipt. 

I kept on with the work, and a few days later, a 
man whom I did not know came to the place and asked 
one of my men for the contractor. He then came to 
me and told me he was Mr. Ledley. He said he had 
failed in New Orleans, but that if I wanted any coal I 
could have all I wanted, but he could not give me any 
money until he got things straightened up. I told 
him that was all right, that I would wait. 

In a few weeks the men working for me began to 
give me a great deal of trouble, as I had not been able 
to pay them. I not only was waiting for the money on 
the Ledley house and was out the court house money, 
but a number of others who owed me could not pay. 
So I was compelled to go to Mr. White again to bor- 
row $500. 

I had just gotten the money and started up Fifth 
avenue, when I met a man I did not recognize. 

"Are you James Owens?" he asked me. 

"That is what I am usually called," I replied. 

"Well, I am George Ledley," he said, "and I have 
just returned from New Orleans. Where have you 
got the bills for the work you did on my house. 

I told him they were at my house, and he told me 
to get them and meet him at Patrick's Bank at Fifth 



My Last Big Spree. 113 

and Wood. I went home and got my book, and was soon 
at the bank. As soon as I told him the amount, $4,754> 
he made me out a check. In going over the books 
he saw how neat and well done they were and he asked 
me who I had for a bookkeeper. I told him my wife 
was keeping the books, and he made out a check in her 
name for $500 and told me to give it to her for a pres- 
ent. I had gotten 1,600 bushels of coal from him and 
gave it to Mr. White, but Mr. Ledley would not take 
a cent for that, saying it was a present for me for finish- 
ing his house when I stood so good a chance of losing 
the full amount of my bill. 

I went at once to Mr. White and settled for the 
money I had borrowed, then went to Frazier and asked 
him if he had any money to pa}^ the men, as they threat- 
ened to quit (which they had.) He told me he didn't 
have a cent. Then I told him I wouldn't take ad- 
vantage of him, and told him just how we stood with 
Mr. Ledley. I gave him his full share, deducting only 
twenty per cent for finishing the ornamental work. He 
wanted me to take a larger share of the amount, but I 
was perfectly satisfied to do as well as I had. 

O 

CHAPTER XXX. 

My Last Big Spree. 

A man in writing the history of his life usually 
tries to put his best side forward, and to leave out those 
things which do not not meet the approbation of the 



114 My Last Big Spree. 

world. I am not a believer in that sort of history. 
History should tell facts as they are or were, and that 
is my only excuse for writing this chapter. There is 
no pride in it, rather a feeling of shame that it is true, 
but since I have promised that I would write the truth 
I must keep my promise, for no one has ever accused 
me of being untruthful. 

In 1858 I was doing considerable work around the 
country, much of the time away from home. I spent 
some time at Evergreen Hamlet, and there I met 
Thornton Shinn and his brother, both lawyers. , We 
became great friends, and as our tastes were similar we 
spent much time together. Besides I did considerable 
work for them. 

One day I met Thornton Shinn on Fifth avenue in 
Pittsburg, and he told me he was doing some business 
for a couple of gentlemen from Germany who were 
stopping at the Monongahela House. He was fixing 
up some business about vv^ne, in which the two Ger- 
mans were dealers, and he said that as they were going 
to leave that night, they wanted him to bring a few 
friends in to supper with them. I joined him, and 
found sixteen others from the city there when we ar- 
rived. All were drinking, and I kept up my end with 
the true Irish spirit. The two men from Germany 
were to take a boat for New Orleans at 3 a. m., and we 
all went to the boat to see them oflf. 

The boat was not ready to start when we arrived., 
and we decided to remain with our new friends till 
time for the boat to leave. So we resumed our drink- 
ing, and at the same time began to play cards. While 



My Last Big Spree. 115 

we were enjoying ourselves, the boat arrived, but we 
were all so well filled with drink by this time, that no 
one cared, and the next thing we knew we were at the 
wharf at New Orleans. 

Even then Thornton Shinn was not satisfied with 
his trip, and he took a boat for Cuba. The rest of us 
were willing to stop where we were, except that all of 
us were anxious to get back to Pittsburg. An inven- 
tory showed us, however, that the total amount of 
money in the party was ten cents, not even enough to 
send ^ message home for money to pui chase tickets. 
We were walking along the levee thinking of home 
and mother, when I saw Captain Koontz walking to- 
ward us. I knew him well, but I was ashamed to have 
him see me in such a plight, and I turned away from 
him. But as he saw me, he hailed me and asked what 
was wrong. 

"What did I ever do to you, Jimmie, that you 
should shun me in a strange city?" he demanded. 

Then I told him of our predicament and that I was 
ashamed to be seen by a friend under the circum- 
stances. 

He knew some of the others in the party also, so 
he took us to the bank and got us enough money to pay 
our passage home, and some besides for incidental ex- 
penses. 

"If my boat were going up the river I would take 
you all home," he said, "but it won't be ready for some 
time yet, and this is the best I can do for you." 

We took the first boat north, and when we got 
liome, I found my wife was in mourning for me, had 



116 A Visit to S'outli Carolina. 

been for five weeks. She had been told that I was 
last seen going toward the Monongahela river, and it 
was generally reported that I was drowned. 

That was the last time I ever took a drink in a pub- 
lic bar or on a boat. I do not intend to say that I have 
never drunk anything since, but I have been a moderate 
drinker and never have since become intoxicated. 
Drinking, like anything else, can be done in moderation 
without great harm, but I decided that I had set the 
limit of my capacity too high. My business had suf- 
fered a good deal while I was away, but I had an old 
man named Moses working for me, who had kept the 
men at work. 

Thornton Shinn did not get back for six or seven 
months. The first time I sav/ him after he returned he 
told me that when he came to himself in Cuba he 
thought he was in hell because it was so hot, and there 
was no one but negroes around him. 

O 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

A Visit to South Carolina. 

In 1859 I got a letter from Columbia, S. C, asking 
me to bid on the stucco work on the State capitol 
building. The letter came from George Oulds, a 
brother of the man who had been so kind to me after 
my arrival in this country, and who lived at Baltimore. 
I bid $33,000 and got the contract. So I took eleven 
men and a foreman with me from Pittsburg and went 



A Visit to South Carolina. 117 

south. I had the ornamental work made in Pittsburg 
and shipped to me. We were getting along rapidly, 
when talk of secession began to be heard. It was a 
trying time, but I kept my opinions to myself and kept 
the men quiet, so we were not molested. One day 
Mr. Quids sent for me. 

"Jin^n^iC'" he said when I arrived, "I suppose you 
are as strong for the North as I am for the South. ft 
begins to look a little squally for your men here." 

"You are right about my sentiments," I told him, 
"but this work ought to be finished, as I have been 
losing sonre money recently, and can't afiford to give up 
this opportunity. I would rather take a few chances 
to finish it." 

"I'll see that you get your money," he replied, "but 
I think it best for you and your men to get away for 
the North as soon as possible. Keep quiet abont this 
and I will see how we can manage it." 

The next day the board met and I was sent for. 
The Sate Supervisor was there, and he went with me 
into the capitol building to look over the work as it 
stood. 

"That looks like pretty expensive stuiif," he said 
when he saw the material laying on the floor ready to 
be put in place. I can tell by the look of it that it is 
hand carved." 

I told him it was rather expensive, but did not 
think it necessary to explain that it was made in 
moulds. He asked me if I would take $28,000 for the 
job as it stood, and I said I would. 



118 A Visit to South Carolina. 

We went back to where the board was sitting, and 
a check for $28,000 was promptly made out for me. I 
was then given passes for myself and my men so that 
we would have no trouble getting home, should hos- 
tilities break out, and we started for Vicksburg. 

My foreman, Mr. Anderson, said he would remain 
in Columbia, as he had never been treated better any 
place in the country, and said it was a shame to desert 
such people. So he stayed and finished the job, and 
got the balance of the money on the contract. I was 
sorry to leave it half done as it was a fine piece of work, 
but my heart was in the north, and all my interests 
were there. 

The South Carolina capitol building is one of the 
finest of the old buildings in the United States, and es- 
caped the ravages of the war because of its beauty. 
When General Grant was in Columbia he made the 
capitol his headquarters and would not allow it to be 
destroyed, saying it was too beautiful to be desecrated 
by a mob, even though the people of South Carolina 
deserved all the punishment they received. 

A new year had begun by the time I was in Pitts- 
burg I had only been home about three weeks when I 
got a letter from Lancaster Oulds of Baltimore, asking 
me to make a bid on the Parker church. His brother 
had written him of the good work we had done in 
South Carolina. 

I found just about as strong a Southern spirit in 
Baltimore as in Columbia. It was a hot-bed of rebel- 
lion, and we had to keep very quiet if we wanted to feel 
half way safe. We had been there but a few days 



More Contracting Experiences. 119 

when a party of men came to my brother and myself 
and asked us to go to the polls and vote the Democratic 
ticket. I told them we would do nothing of the kind 
and this made them very angry. 

"1 voted the Whig ticket when Taylor was nomin- 
ated," I told them, ''and after that I voted with the 
Knownothings rather than vote the Democratic ticket, 
and I am not going to begin it at this late day." 

The result of the conference was that it was made 
pretty warm for me and my men in Baltimore, but we 
finally got the work finished and got home with whole 
skins, though it did look pretty squally for us at times. 



-O- 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

More Contracting Experiences. 

Soon after I returned from Baltimore I took a con- 
tract from William Kerr to do the brick work, stucco 
work and for putting cement on the outside of his new 
house in Point Breeze. When I got along as far as 
the cementing he wanted me to let him ofif on the bal- 
ance of the contract, but I refused to do so. He said 
war was coming on, and he did not care to finish up the 
work at once. Nevertheless, I went ahead with it, and 
when the time came for him to pay I had to take his 
notes or nothing. On the day the notes fell due, his 
bookkeeper asked me if he had made any arrangements 
to pay the notes. 



120 More Contracting Experiences. 

"He leaves to-day for a trip to Europe," said the 
bookkeeper. 

I went to see my banker, and found nothing had 
been done about the notes, so I started out to hunt Mr. 
Kerr, and I must say I had blood in my eye. I secured 
a warrant, and the services of an officer, and we at last 
found him just as he had reached the depot to take the 
train for New York. When he found that it was go- 
ing to delay his trip he gave me the full amount and I 
let him go. 

A few years later Mr. Kerr's wife died, and he mar- 
ried again. The second Mrs. Kerr wanted some gut- 
ters put on the house and the jobber who did the work 
broke part of the cement work I had put on. Mrs. 
Kerr asked her husband who had done the cement 
work, and he told her that the fellow who did the work 
was dead. 

"It's too bad," she told him, 'T want it repaired 
right, and it's a pity to have it half done by some one 
else who will be more than likely to spoil it." 

A little later she was talking to the man repairing 
the gutters, and told him she was sorry to hear that the 
man who had done the cement work was dead. 

"Jimmie Owens is not very dead," said the man, 
laughing. "I saw him this morning on my way up 
here, and he looked prett}^ active for a dead one." 

Mrs. Kerr at once ordered her carriage and came 
to look for me. When she told me her husband said I 
was dead. I told her that I guessed he wished I were, 
but I was too bus}^ to accommodate him in that respect. 



More Contracting Experiences. 121 

Then I told her all about the affair of the first contract 
and the notes. 

"Well, I want you to come out and fix up that 
work, anyhow," she said, laughing at the scene I had 
described, catching her husband at the depot and mak- 
ing him pay the notes. She insisted that I should get 
into the carriage at once and go out and see what was 
to be done. As we were walking into the yard at her 
residence we met Mr. Kerr coming out. 

"I have risen from the dead, you see," I said to 
him. 

"I had hoped you would never set foot on my place 
again," was all the reply he made, as he passed on out 
the gate on the way to his office. 

I made the contract with Mrs. Kerr to fix up the 
• cement work, and while we were looking it over, I saw 
that the man fixing the gutters was not putting in good 
copper, and told her so. Mrs. Kerr asked me to stay, 
take charge of the work and see that it was done right. 
I told her that if I did that I would have to charge her 
$io a day. 

"I don't care what it costs, see that the work is 
done right, and when it is finished I will see that you 
get your money." 

So I took the contract, and when I finished the 
cement work I added to the bill four days overseeing 
the other v/ork at $io a day. I handed the bill to Mr. 
Kerr, and he said it was extortion. I reminded him 
that I had gotten $50 for less work many a time, and 
also that if I took the account to his wife she would 



122 Mixing in Politics. 

pay it without question, so he paid me rather than have 
me go to his wife about it. 

After that Mr. Kerr and I became good friends, 
and I built two houses on Liberty street for him. 
While doing the whitewashing, I put colored men at 
work, and Mr. Kerr came down and raised another row 
with me. 

''It's an insult to put negroes to work on my 
houses," he declared. So I had to send the colored 
men away and put white men at the work just to please 
him. 

O 

CHAPTER XXXIII. 

Mixing in Politics. 

Just prior to the war politics were pretty hot in 
Pittsburg, and I could not escape getting into the fi*ay 
if I had wanted to. But my fighting Irish spirit al- 
ways carried me into the thick of any sort of a scrim- 
mage. I had a good bit of influence in the district 
where I lived, and was consequently one of the dele- 
gates sent to Lafayette Hall when the Republican 
party was formed. It was an enthusiastic meeting, 
but enthusiasm alone is not enough to win elections, 
and our first candidate for President — John C. Fre- 
mont — was defeated. Still the result had shown us 
that there was a place for the party in the country, and 
a big place, too. 



Mixing in Politics. 123 

Four years later, J. M. Brush and myself were 
elected delegates to the National Convention of the 
party to be held at Chicago. We were instructed for 
Seward, of New York, and we stood out for him until 
it was shown that he had no possible chance of elec- 
tion. About II o'clock on the fourth day of the con- 
vention the name of Lincoln was sprung on the con- 
vention. The old rail splitter, as he was known, was 
of little prominence then outside of his own state, but 
his victory over Stephen A. Douglass had given him 
prestige that made his name take like wild-fire. The 
house was in an uproar, and on the second ballot the 
man who has since been the patron saint of Republican- 
ism was the nominee of the party for President. 

Then a crowd started for Springfield, and I went 
along. We brought Lincoln back to Chicago with us, 
and the whole city went wild with enthusiasm. I can 
still see, in the eye of memory, the great crowds in the 
streets, and the mass of people in the convention hall 
as the nominee appeared, and I can hear the cheers as 
he mounted the platform. It was a most inspiring oc- 
casion. The enthusiasm never faltered until the old 
rail-splitter was seated in the White House, and then 
kept behind him through the trying times of the years 
of bloodshed and carnage that followed. There were 
dark days, when it seemed that the Union of States was 
doomed, but never did the people lose faith in their 
champion and friend seated in the Presidental chair, 
carrying the burden of an afflicted and war-worn nation 
on his shoulders. 



124 Mixing in Politics. 

These were trying times in Pittsburg for there was 
work to do, and work in plenty, for those who could not 
join the hosts in the field as well as for those who could 
go to the front. I tried to enlist, but was refused be- 
cause of the condition of my health, then I helped as- 
sume the burden of those who must stay behind. I 
was on the committee to see that each ward furnished 
its quota of men to fill the ranks of the army, and then 
I helped the same committee raise money to support 
the men we sent out. Our troubles would come in 
plenty when we landed in a Democratic house. We 
could get clubs and bricks and almost anything the 
army could not use, but no money. 

There were ropes hanging over the lamp posts to 
hang traitors, and one Sunday as I was going home 
with my wife and children after a walk I met Dr. Mc- 
Cook coming down the street carrying a red shirt on 
the bayonet of his gun. 

"They have a man down in the lockup who was 
caught trying to smuggle goods to the Southern army," 
he said, "and we are going to hang him." 

I sent my family home, and joined the doctor. 
Crowds began to follow us as we went along, and the 
street was filled as we got to the prison door. I. went 
in with the doctor to see the fellow. He declared he 
knew nothing about the alleged clothing that was being 
smuggled South, and said he was en route to Ohio. 
Then we called in the conductor on the train and he 
told us the man's ticket called for a ride to Canton, O. 
and he was let off and escorted to the train. 



Mixing in Politics. 125 

Matters continued in this excited state for about a 
year. We had a hard time getting any money from 
our own side, and we decided that we would force the 
Southern sympathizers to pay their share of the ex- 
pense of conducting the war. We had a meeting of 
delegates from the nine wards and a committee was ap- 
pointed to go to Harrisburg to get the Legislature to 
pass a law assessing a capias tax. I was named as the 
representative of the ward in which I lived. 

When we got off the train at Harrisburg we met 
a committee from the South Side that had gone there 
on the same mission and was coming away defeated, 
They had been turned down by a vote of three to one. 
We were somewhat discouraged at the report of their 
poor success, but we decided that we had better try 
our hand at it, since we had come so far. I was well 
acquainted with J. P. Glass, member of the Legislature 
from my ward, and I told the committee I would see 
him. We went to the Capitol Hotel and all registered, 
then I went to find Glass. 

Mr. Glass said things looked pretty dark for* us. 
but advised us to stay around for a few days and see 
if an opportunity did not turn up to put the thing 
through. He took us about the town and gave us a 
good time, but that didn't seem to be doing much good. 
On the second day, however, he advised us to give a 
dinner and invite the members of the Legislature. I 
called on the members of the committee and asked 
what they would give toward the scheme. Hugh M. 
Bole said he would give $i,ooo if necessary, and other 
members of the committee gave as liberally as they 



126 Mixing in Politics. 

could. I then told Glass to go ahead with arrange- 
ments for the dinner. He saw the proprietor of the 
hotel and arranged for the affair. 

The following night Glass invited seventy-two of 
the members of the Legislature. Supper was started 
Jate, and it kept on for hours. All kinds of wine was 
served and ever3^body was having a great time. But 
along about 3 a. m. some of them began to think about 
getting to bed. Glass called me to one side and told 
me to keep the party there until they would just have 
time to get to the legislative hall, so I ordered more 
wine and the fun started all over again. 

Shortly after daylight Glass told me it was time 
to ease off so they could get away. 

When the House met, we all went to the session, 
and James Onslow carried the bill up to Glass. We 
were seated where we could see how every member 
voted. When placed on its final passage the bill went 
through unanimously. 

Then we started for the Senate, where the bill was 
carried in by Onslow and handed to the President of 
the Senate, James Graham, and again we lined up 
where we could watch the vote. The Senate also 
passed our bill. At just 11 130 we took the bill to the 
executive mansion and Governor Curtin signed it, so 
we were ready to return home, successful and happy. 

We did not return straight home, but went with a 
party of members of the Legislature on a trip to Wash- 
ington, Philadelphia. Baltimore and New York and 
spent two of the best weeks of our lives. 



Wartime Experiences. 127 

As soon as we got back to Pittsburg we began to 
collect the tax, but, as before, we got other things be- 
sides money. It finally got so hot that Mayor Wilson 
sent two policemen with each collector. One day a 
man threw me a bouquet in the shape of a brick from 
a second story window. I knew the fellow and the 
next time I met him on the street I gave him a brick, 
though I did not hand it to him very gently, just to 
show him how much I appreciated his favor. 

We got our full quota of taxes that year, and the 
next year we had about half the amount collected when 
the law was repealed by the Legislature. Wm. Ward 
and some other Democrats tried to get their money 
back, but the courts decided against them on the 
ground that while the law was in force we had a per- 
fect right to collect the money. 

O 

CHAPTER XXXIV. 

War-Time Experiences. 

During the war, horses and mules were worth al- 
most their weight in gold, and a man would gO' a long 
way to purchase a good animal for his work. I had 
a little mule I had no immediate use for, and I asked 
'Squire Lindsey to sell him for me. I asked $500 for 
the mule, and the 'Squire was some days looking for a 
purchaser at the price. One day he told me he had 
arranged to meet a purchaser at Sterling's saloon, and 
we went there to meet the man, who was a miner with 



128 Wartime Experiences, 

a low coal bank. The miner had not arrived when 
we went into the place, and while we were waiting for 
him, 'Squire Lindsey got into an argument with a big 
Irishman, who was best equipped with the logic of the 
fists, and when the argument got warmed up, he peeled 
off his coat and vest and waded into the 'Squire. He 
knocked Lindsey down and was pummelling him, when 
I dragged him off. The 'Squire rushed out of the door 
as soon as he was able to get up, and then the Irishman 
turned on me. He knocked me against the stove and 
was kicking me in the face, when a crowd came in, and 
my assailant ran out the back door. 

I got up and put his coat and vest, containing his 
watch and money, into the stove. By this time, my 
eyes had swollen shut and I could not see. A man 
who knew me took me around to the building next to 
the postoffice, which I was then constructing, and sat 
me down on a pile of lumber. I had only been there 
a moment when a scaffold fell, and when my men saw 
me they thought the scaffolding had fallen on me. I 
did not disabuse their minds, but allowed one of them 
to take me home and go for a doctor. 

The first day I was able to be out, I went to the 
postoffice, where I got some letters and was sitting 
there in the lobby reading them when a friend came 
along and asked me what was the cause of my black 
eyes. I told him about the battle in the saloon. 

"Would you know the fellow if you were to see 
him again?" he asked. 



Wartime Experiences. 129 

"I certainly would," I replied, and happening to 
look out in the street I saw the fellow passing in a bug- 
gy with Jim Williams, and pointed him out. 

The two men in the buggy went to Williams' sa- 
loon and we followed them. My Irish friend was stand- 
ing at the bar, when the man who was with me walked 
up and gave him a punch on the jaw that sent him 
sprawling on the floor. He followed this up with a 
few hot kicks that made the fellow yell bloody murder. 

"Jump on him, Jimmie, and give him what is com- 
ing to him/' said my friend, but I wouldn't do it, so he 
handed him a few more hot ones, then let him get up. 

''If I ever hear of you attacking Jimmie Owens 
again," said my friend to the bruised and bleeding 
Irishman, "I will kill you, and consider it a pleasure." 

That gave me my revenge on the Irishman, but I 
still had the mule on m}^ hands, as I was not able to see 
the miner who wanted to make the purchase. But 
about this time a circus came along, and the manager 
wanted a mule to send up in a baloon to draw a crowd. 
He offered me $ioo if the mule came down safe, and 
$500 if he was hurt. So I let him take the mule, and he 
came down all right, so I was $100 a head. 

A few days later 'Squire Lindsey came to me, and 
said the miner was in town again and was still anxious 
to buy the mule. I went down to Young's with the 
mule and sold him to the miner for $500 and the two 
of us went into the saloon to count out the money, 
while the 'Squire stayed outside to watch the mule. 
Just as the miner and I were coming out of the saloon 
the 'Squire was fooling around the business end of the 



130 I Become a Horseman. 

animal, and the mule gave him a kick that lifted him 
out into the street. 

''If I had known the mule would kick, I wouldn't 
have bought him," said the purchaser. 

"Did you ever know a mule that wouldn't?" I ask- 
ed him. "Still, if you don't want him, you can have 
your money back. The mule is as good as the money 
to me." 

When he he saw I was not very anxious to sell, the 
miner led the mule avv^ay. A few days later he came 
in and told me the mule was not worth $5, as he kicked 
so much he could not hitch him up. I offered him $100 
for the mule, and he accepted, so I had the mule on my 
hands again. Shortly after that ni}^ brother sold the 
mule again to a miner in Washington county, getting 
$500 for him, so I got two prices for the mule and the 
'Squire got two lickings. 

O 



CHAPTER XXXV. 

I Become a Horseman. 

In 1861 I went down to vSummit. O., to buy a horse 
I had been told was a match for one I had, and when 
I got there I found he was not the horse I wanted at 
all. I was very much disappointed, and it was plain 
to be seen. A wag at the hotel where I was stopping 
said if I would take him to New Philadelphia he would 



I Become a Horseman, 131 

show me a horse that I could get which would pick up 
my other horse and the buggy with it and go ahead of 
anything on the road. 

'*If he can't," he said, "I will pay the expense of 
the trip." 

I accepted his offer, and we drove over. We found 
the horse hitched to a plow, and when I looked at it. 
I declared that I would be ashamed to be seen driving 
behind such an old reprobate, for he was certainly as 
ugly an old horse as I ever laid eyes on. 

"Beauty w^as not in the bargain. What I recom- 
mended him for was speed," said my companion. 

I finally consented to have the horse hitched to 
the buggy for a trial heat down the road. When I got 
out into the road, I tightened up the reins and started 
him up. He didn't seem to need a whip, and the way 
he picked up that buggy and flew along the road was 
enough to take my breath awa}^ I had never ridden 
so fast in my life. I drove him about a mile down the 
road to see that his wind was all right, then turned and 
came back, and it seemed to me that he came faster 
than he went. When I reached the gate he slowed up, 
and had never turned a hair. 

''What will you take for him?" I asked. 

"One thousand dollars," was the reply. 

"Better save your breath," I told him, "for I would 
never pay that much for the best horse that ever pulled 
a buggy." 

Just then his wife called us in to dinner, and after 
dinner we went to the stable to look over the horse 
again. I wanted the horse, but not to the extent of 



132 I Become a Horseman. 

$i,ooo. I offered him $500, but he laughed at me. I 
offered him $550, and then just as I was ready to drive 
off, I turned around in the buggy, and said : 

"If you'll take $575 you may lead him out and hand 
me the hitching strap." 

"You own Maguesler," he said starting for the 
stable, and he soon came leading him out, while I was 
counting out his money. 

I drove the horse back to Pittsburg, then put him 
in the stable to rest a few days, giving him only light 
exercise. One morning I decided it was about time 
to hitch him up and see if he could do as well in the 
city as he did in the country. I drove out the Fourth 
street road to Point Breeze, where the fast horses were 
to be found at that time, and stopped to allow some of 
the fellows to look him over. 

"I'll give you $5 for him," said one, and all the 
others laughed. 

"Can't take it," I replied, "I'm going to enter him 
in the pet stock show." 

Everybody around thought my buggy horse was a 
good joke, but I never said a word about what he 
could do as a roadster. I picked up the reins and 
jogged away on the road home. About the time I got 
to Black Horse on Penn avenue Alex. King came along 
and passed me with his mouse colored horse, that was 
considered one of the best roadsters in the city. I 
spoke to Maguesler and he straightened out as if de- 
termined to make a reputation for himself then and 
there. 



I Become a Horseman. 133 

Before we reached St. Mary's cemetery I had 
passed Alex as easy as he could pass a dray horse, and 
when I got to the toll house, I stopped to wait for him 
to come up. 

"Where did you get that horse?" he demanded as 
soon as he was within hailing distance. 

**Just took him out of a sand-wagon to run into 
town for a few moments," I replied. 

"That's the way with you Irish," he said. "You 
don't know the difference between a sand-wagon horse 
and a thoroughbred. I'll give you twelve sand-wagon 
horses for him." 

"Couldn't think of it," I replied, "for when I want 
sand I want it quick, and that is the reason I have this 
horse." 

Alex insisted on my putting a. price on the horse, 
but I refused, as I told him I was in a hurry to get to 
town, so I gave Maguesler his head and left the mouse 
colored roadster far in the rear. 

About a week later the Presbyterian church gave a 
picnic at Baum's grove, and I hitched up the horse and 
drove out with my wife and children in a two-seated 
top buggy. The buggy was made so that the top and 
rear seat could be removed. My wife and two children 
occupied the rear seat and I had a boy named Holson 
in the seat with me. 

When I was preparing to start home from the pic- 
nic, I saw Alex. King and Dr. McCandless run to. their 
horses and hitch also. They both had fast horses and 
thought because of my heavy load they would have no 



134 I Become a Horseman. 

trouble in passing- me in the road and would then have 
the laugh on me. 

King- passed me just as we left the grove, but be- 
fore we struck the Fourth street road I Avas ahead again 
and Maguesler was going like the wind, never seeming 
to mind the heavy load in the buggy. 

When I had gotten about a mile beyond the Soho 
hill, I discovered that the top and rear seat of my buggy 
was gone. I had been so wrapped up in the race that I 
never thought of anything but winning. 1 was badly 
frightened when I discovered the condition of affairs, 
and turned and started back to see how much damage 
had been done, expecting to find my family at least 
badly hurt by the accident. 

When I reached the Soho hill, I found the doctor 
had one of my boys in a house putting a plaster on his 
head, which was slightly cut, but that was all the dam- 
age done. 

"You evidentl}'- don't care what becomes of 3'Our 
family so long as you win the race." said the Doctor." 
I guess he was sore because his horse was so easily 
distanced. 

The next time I hitched up I asked Elizabeth if 
she would like to try it again, and she said she certainly 
would, that she didn't mind being spilled out, as we 
won the race with odds against us. 

Maguesler was a pacer and I wanted him to trot, 
as trotting was the most fashionable gait then as 
now, though pacers are more respected now. So I 
took him to Harry Van Vorce's race track and 
spent a lot of money on him, but it was no use. He 



Tom Scott and Isaac M. Pinnick. 135 

was a natural pacer and trotting was not in his line of 
accomplishments. 

One night I was in Levi Young's saloon with some 
of the boys, attending a little dinner, and we all drank 
pretty hard. When I sobered up John Watson and Sam 
Keys told me they had bought Maguesler from me for 
$7,500. I had only $5,000 in my pocket, and I told them 
they must be mistaken, but they said I had spent the 
balance, and I let them have the horse. 

Maguesler was the horse that afterward drove 
Dexter to his great record, and was later sold with 
Dexter for $37,000, and I never saw him again, and 
finally completely lost track of him. My wife said she 
was glad I sold the horse, even though she would not 
admit that she was afraid to ride behind him. 

O 

CHAPTER XXXVI. 

Tom Scott and Isaac M. Pinnick. 

In 1852, Isaac M. Pinnick, with whom I was well 
acquainted, introduced me to Tom Scott, who was then 
Superintendent of the Western Division of the Penn- 
sylania Railroad, but who was afterward President of 
the company. The company wanted to build thirty- 
two cottages at Cresson Springs, and when the man 
who had the contract got fairly well started he failed, 
leaving the work unfinished. Pinnick brought Scott to 
me, and they asked me to give them figures on finishing 
the work. I told them I would take $3,500 for each 



13 G Tom Scott and Isaac M. Pinnick. 

building. Scott asked me what bond I would give for 
the faithful performance of the contract. 

''Any amount," I replied. 

"Make it $100,000," said Scott. "Who will you 
get to go on your bond ?" 

"Isaac M. Pinnick and Tom Scott," I replied. "Are 
they good enough?" 

"No one but an Irishman would have such impu- 
dence," said Scott looking at Pinnick. 

"I'll go on his bond, if necessary," said Pinnick, 
"but I don't think you need a bond. He has done a con- 
siderable amount of work for me and I never found 
a bond necessary." 

So Scott agreed that I could take the contract 
without giving bond and I started to work at once. 

When I built the Crescent hotel the company al- 
lowed me to use water from the watering tank to make 
mortar, and when I began work on the cottages I also 
began using water from the tank without saying any- 
thing about it to anyone. Scott came to me and told me 
I could not use water from the tank, and when I told 
him it had been the custom, he said he didn't care a 
hurrah for custom. I was to let that water alone. He 
had a strong lock put on the tank house door, but when 
I needed the water I made a syphon from hose I se- 
cured at the Eagle fire house in Pittsburg and got all 
the v.^ater I wanted for the time being. Pretty soon a 
coal train came along and stopped to take water, but 
found none in the tank. The engineer reported the 
fact at headquarters, and the next day Scott came down 
again. He brought a lot of laborers, thinking a pipe 



Tom Scott and Isaac M. Pinnick. 137 

had burst, but after digging all around the tank and 
finding no leak he could not understand it, as the 
lock had not been broken. He gave it up and returned 
to Altoona. 

Billy Fritz was the only one of the men working 
for me who knew how I was getting the water. The 
next night when I was passing through the bar-room 
of the hotel, on the way out to get some more water 
while the coast was clear, the bar tender said there was 
a Dutchman in the billiard room who was looking for 
me. 

"He's here to see that you don't get any more 
water from that tank," said the bar tender. 

I went upstairs and awakened Billy Fritz, who 
was also a German, and told him to get acquainted 
with Scott's watchman and keep him busy while I got 
the water. Billy went downstairs, got to talking with 
the Dutchman and soon they were sitting at a table 
drinking beer at my expense. I quickly slipped out and 
attached the hose. In a short while I had about all 
the water I wanted and the tank was empty. I return- 
ed to the bar-room and Billy and his new friend were 
still sitting there with beer glasses in front of them. 
I told Billy I thought I would have a gla^s of ale be- 
fore going to bed and asked what he and his friend 
would have. Each took a glass of beer, and we were 
drinking and talking when a train came along and 
found the tank empty as usual. The Dutchman jumped 
up and ran out to see what had become of the water, 
while Billy and I sat still and laughed as though we 



138 Tom Scott and Isaac M. Pinnick. 

were attending a minstrel show and listening to jokes 
that were old friends. 

That ended the experience of the Dutchman as a 
watchman. The next night, while I was preparing to 
get my usual supply of water, I heard a freight train 
stop at Adams' sawmill, some distance up the road, and 
guessed that someone was coming along to spy on my 
operations. I jumped over the fence and hid in the 
bushes, and pretty soon saw a man come down and 
walk all around the tank. He then passed around 
among the houses, and finally went into the telegraph 
office and lighted a lamp. Then I saw that it was Mr. 
Scott, himself. He went to the teleg-raph instrument 
and sent a message, then came out and walked around 
among the houses till nearly daylight. At last he went 
to the Crescent house and sat down on the porch in 
such a position as to be able to see the tank. He put 
his feet up on a chair and prepared himself as though 
trying to be comfortable for a long siege. 

When I saw how things stood I was more de- 
termined than ever to get the water that morning. So 
I told Billy Fritz to get a section of the hose and get on 
the far side of the tank and run the water out. I stood 
where I could watch Scott's feet so that I could warn 
Billy if he made a move. I kept watch till Billy told 
me the water was all out of the tank, then we hid the 
hose and both went to bed. 

When we came down stairs later, after getting 
some sleep, Scott was standing at the door. 

"Is this the time of day you usually get up to go to 
work?" he asked me. 



Tom Scott and Isaac M. Pinnick. 139 

"I wasn't feeling very well this morning," I re- 
plied, "and decided to get plenty of sleep." 

"When a man stays up all night he doesn't usually 
want to get up very early," said Scott. "How did you 
get that water out of the tank last night?" 

"I never touched your old tank, last night," I said. 
(It was Billy that "touched" the tank, but I didn't tell 
Scott so). 

That ended the trouble about taking water out of 
the tank. Scott decided that since he could not catch 
me there was no use sending anyone else to look after 
nothing more was said about it. 

When I finished the work and had Mr. Pinnick's 
signature to the paper saying everything was satisfac- 
tory, I went to Altoona to get the voucher for my pay. 
After Mr. Scott signed the paper he said he was going 
east to live and that v/e had been good friends, but be- 
fore he Avould give me the money I would have to tell 
it, so I was allovv^ed to use all the water I wanted and 
him how I got the water out of the tank the night he 
was playing watchman. 

"I will never tell you," I replied, "but I have a lot 
of men waiting down at Cresson for their money and I 
want to get home this afternoon, and if you will take 
me to Cresson on a special I will show you how it was 
done." 

He told me to go out and get my money, while he 
ordered the special, and we were soon on our way. 

When we reached Cresson I told Billy Fritz to get 
the hose out and take it to the tank without letting 
Scott see him. Then I took Scott up to the hotel and 



140 Tom Scott and Isaac M. Pinnick. 

seated him in the same position he occupied the morn- 
ing he had been playing watchman. When he was 
seated I asked him if he could not see how the water 
was being taken from the tank. 

"I can't see anything. Was that all you brought 
me down here for?" he asked. 

"Well, the water is flowing from the tank never- 
theless," I told him. 

Then I took him around to the other side of the 
tank, and there was Billy Fritz with the hose throwing 
a big stream into Dr. Jackson's woods. 

''That will do, now, Jimmie. I will have to admit 
that you have beaten me." 

Then we shook hands, and he said he would for- 
give me for all my crimes, as he was going to leave 
this part of the country and did not like to leave me 
with such a heavy burden of sin hanging over me. 

Alexander McClurg was one of the rich men of 
Pittsburg before the war, but like many men of wealth 
to-day, he was very hard to deal with. He had a great 
dislike for paying bills, and also made it a policy to pay 
as much as possible in store orders, thus getting two 
profits on ever}^ investment when possible. He worked 
every known scheme to get the best of men who had 
dealings with him. His property he kept in his wife's 
name and all contracts were made in his own name, so 
there was no chance to levy on him. 

I had done some work for him on Lafayette Hall, 
(now the Grand Theater) and he owed me $1,165. For 
months I tried to get a settlement, but he always put 



Tom Scott and Isaac M. Pinnick. 141 

me off. Finally we had a row in his office, and I de- 
clared I would never enter his place again. 

One day shortly after the row I was driving out 
Perrysville road and saw a number of new houses go- 
ing up. 

"Who's houses are these," I asked of a man work- 
ing near the road. 

"Alec McClurg's," he replied. 

I said nothing more, but drove on. The following 
day I went up to McClurg's office. 

"Hello, Jimmie. I thought you would never come 
to my office again," was his greeting. 

"I'd forgotten about that," I replied. "I need a 
little money and thought I would come in and see if 
I could not get about $50. 

"Can't do it to-day, Jimmie. Haven't got a cent in 
bank." 

"Alright," I said, "business is a little slack with me 
just now and I thought I'd come in to see how you were 
fixed." 

"By the way," I continued. "I hear you are build- 
ing some houses out the Perrysville road. Have you 
contracted for the plastering?" 

"Not yet," he replied, "I hadn't even thought of go- 
ing to you about it, as you said you would never work 
for me again." 

"Oh, there's no use quarreling," I told him. "I 
haven't much to do just now, and I like to keep my 
men busy. I'd be glad to make a deal with you." 

"You'll have to take your pay in store orders," he 
said. 



142 Tom Scott and Isaac M. Pinnlck. 

"I don't mind that," I told him. "My wife asked 
me to get some groceries and some cloth for a dress for 
the little girl to-day, and store orders would be as good 
as money just at present. 

''AH right, I'll be glad for you to do the work on 
those terms, Jimmie," he said, and at my suggestion he 
wrote me the store orders right there. 

''I don't know just \vhat I want," I told him, so he 
wrote me two open orders, one for dry goods on Vv^hite 
& Smiley and the other for groceries on Francis Bailey. 

As soon as I left his oflice I went to the dry goods 
store and asked I\Ir. Smile}^ how much I'.IcClurg's order 
was good for. 

''He just sent me a credit for $500 this morning," 
replied Smiley. 

"Alright," I said, presenting my open order. "J^^st 
credit me with the amount and charge it up to McClurg 
on this order." 

Smiley soon had the account transferred, and then 
I went to the grocery store, where I learned that Mc- 
Clurg had also placed a $500 credit that morning, and I 
took that also. Then I went back to McClurg's office. 

'T have just discovered that I cannot do that Per- 
r3'-sville road work for you. Alec," I said. 

"Awfully sorry, Jimmie for your work is always 
first-class," he replied, without getting up. 

Then I started for the door as though that was all 
I had come for, but suddenly turning back I said : 

"By the way, Alec, I arranged a'bout those store 
orders, and will give you credit for $1,000 on that Laf- 
a3^ette hall account." 



Warm Times Politically. 143 

He jumped up, livid with rage, and as 1 dodged out 
of the door a chair came flying toward my head and 
was crushed to splinters against the door jamb. I lost 
no time getting down stairs, and was glad to^ escape 
alive. 

I never did any more work for Alexander McClurg, 
and I never collected that $165 balance either. 



-O- 



CHAPTER XXXVII. 

Warm Times Politics. ,y. 

After finishing the work at Cresson I went up to 
spend a few weeks with my family at Summit House. 
I was out for a holiday after months of hard work, and 
we all threw all care to the winds. There were a great 
number of people there from Pittsburg and Philadel- 
phia and some from New York, and we soon made 
friendships, some of them which lasted for years. 
Among the guests were Alfred Atmore and Captain 
Patterson from Philadelphia. One evening they 
dressed me up as a woman and sent me down among 
the people in the parlor as the 'Svild woman of the Alle- 
ghenies." I made a poor mouth to the people about 
having a big family and I had to sell my apples at night 
as I worked hard at home all day. The people were 
touched by my story, and I reaped a harvest of nickles, 
dimes and quarters, until Mrs. Atmore saw the heel 
of my boot peeking out from under my dress. 



144 Warm Times Politically. 

"It's that devil, Owens," she cried, and then the 
crowd caught me and took all the money they had 
given me away. 

A few days later Dr. Bell, the mountain physician, 
took me with him to see his patients and introduced me 
to them as a famous specialist from Philadelphia. The 
first patient we visited was an old Irish woman. I 
felt her pulse and looked at her tongue, then I told her 
she did not need medicine, but what would do her most 
good was a baked potatoe and some good cream. Then 
we went to see an old section hand who was suffering 
from rheumatism. I advised him to quit drinking 
whiskey, and to eat rolled oats and milk. 

But we were not always joking that summer. The 
great question then outside the war was whether the 
soldiers in the field should vote at the coming election 
for President. One night we were sitting in the parlor 
at the Summit house, talking politics as usual, when an 
old schoolmaster made a foul remark about President 
Lincoln. I told him if he said the like again I would 
throw him out of the house. He did say it again, and 
I went into him like a bull dog, and the next thing he 
knew he was lying in the middle of the road. 

That ended the incident for the time, but it was re- 
vived when election day came. I had been in the dis- 
trict long enougli to vote and I went to the polls with 
Dr. Bell. The old schoolmaster challenged my vote, 
but I satisfied the board of my right to a vote, and also 
told how I had thrown the fellow out of the Summit 
house. Still the schoolmaster stuck to his story, so 
the board would not allow us to vote there, thinking- I 



Warm Times Politically. 145 

was at the Crescent House. So Dr. Bell and I started 
for the other district and the crowd around the polls 
started to follow us, with the schoolmaster in the lead. 
We got there first and I had my ballot made and voted 
before the crovv^d with the old man arrived. Dr. Bell 
decided we had better not return the way we came for 
fear the crowd would attack us, so vv^e rode back by 
way of the railroad. We stopped at a tavern to get a 
glass of ale, and while we were drinking the school- 
master and his gang came in. 

The schoolmaster came up to me and putting his 
fist under my nose declared he was as g'ood a man as 
I was, notwithstanding I had put him out of the Sum- 
mit house, and I came back with the remark that there 
was not a man of 145 pounds in the country who could 
thrash me, and I was not afraid of any man in his 
crowd. 

Just then a man came up and slapping me on the 
back declared : 

"I am that man's brother, but if there is to be a 
fight I will see that you get fair play. If you had taken 
his bluff I would have been the first man to hit you." 

That ended the trouble, and v/e soon had the 
schoolmaster's whole crowd drinking with us. Still 
we were glad to get away, and the doctor said after- 
ward that he was sure he was going to have a good 
time patching me up so that the remains would look 
well in a box. 

The next day four of us went to Altoona to hear 
the election returns and remained for three days, and 



146 Battle in the Courts. 

when we returned our families said they thought we 
had run away and left them. 

When we got back the doctor took me around to 
see his patients again. The old woman for whom I 
had prescribed the potatoe and cream was much better 
and she pulled out her purse and asked me how much 
she owed me. 

"I never charge poor people anything," I told her. 

**The Lord will be with you as long as you live," 
she said fervently. 

We went to see the old fellow with the rheumatism 
next, but he was not doing so well and I advised him to 
take more fresh air. 

O 

CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

Battle in the Courts. 

In 1863 I purchased from Andy Fulton some 
property on Congress street and together we built some 
houses on it. After finishing this work the Perry prop- 
erty at Eighth and Duquesne Way fell into my hands 
I at once began to build nine houses on the rear of it, 
facing on Maddock's alley. When I had the houses 
about finished the alley was shut up on the claim that 
it was private property. I did not pay any attention 
to it at the time, intending to let it alone till I had the 
houses finished. Before finishing them I sold two of 
the houses to the Methodist college on Eighth street, 
and shortlv later I sold the other seven to J. K. Hamil- 



Battle in the Courts. 147 

ton. Lawrence Cramer, one of the college trustees, 
asked me to take down the fence in front of the proper- 
ty, and I told him I would when I got ready to take 
down my own fence. 

After selling the property to Hamilton I went to 
Washington, Pa., to do some work for Joseph Mc- 
Knight, and when I returned I met Cramer on Fifth 
avenue and he told me I had not taken down the Mad- 
docks alley fence as I had promised. I told him I had 
no fence of my own to take down now, and the agree- 
ment had been to take down the fence in the alley when 
I removed my own. He still claimed I was wrong, so 
we left the dispute to his father and Abram Patterson, 
the banker. 

When we told them the story from our different 
points of view, they agreed that I ought to remove the 
fence. They declared I had a perfect right to open the 
alley, and so I agreed to do it. 

Before I was ready to get at the job, I met Hamil- 
ton, and he asked me to take down his fence at the sam 
time. He agreed to pay me for the work, and I de- 
cided I might as well make a clean sweep of the alley 
fences. 

I had a lot of men working on the mountain for the 
railroad company and some working at Washington, 
and I had them, all come to my office Saturday after- 
noon. I told them what I wanted them to do, and told 
them to have their tickets read}^ to rush out of town 
so they would not be arrested. When I got the men 
all together, I found there were 64 of them, and as each 
had to have an ax, I went to Joe Woodwell's store and 



T4S Battle in the Courts. 

borrowed all he had. He had not enough to go around, 
and I had to use some hatchets. 

The next move was to get John Stewart, who was 
a good friend of mine and also of Mayor Sawyer, to 
take the Mayor out of town. Stewart got the Mayor 
to go to Squirrel hill to look at a piece of property he 
owned, and which Stewart talked of buying. When I 
saw them drive away I knew I was safe from arrest un- 
til the fences were all down. 

So I took my 64 men to the alley and started them 
to work. Just as we got started, James Maffett ran 
out of the house and down to his brother John's plumb- 
ing shop on Second avenue. They were the men who 
had closed the alley. When wt were about half through 
v/ith the work John ^Jaffett came running up with five 
policemen, including Chief Robert Hugue. The Chief 
tapped me on the shoulder. 

"Jimmie, I am sorry to have to arrest you," he 
said. 

''Well, Bob, you needn't be sorry," I replied, 
"you've arrested many a better man. What are you 
going to arrest me for." 

"For raising a riot." 

"I didn't see any riot," I replied. "These men are 
hired by me to do this work, and they are as quiet as 
they can be under the circumstances." 

When I had explained what I was doing, he told 
Maffett there was no chance to arrest me without a 
warrant, and he asked me to wait till he could see the 
Mayor, but I told him I was too busy, and I could not 
be expected to pay men for doing nothing, and simply 



Battle in the Courts. 149 

waiting on the convenience of someone who would 
like to have me run in. 

"Bob, go ahead and arrest him, and I will shoulder 
the responsibility," said John Maffett. 

"All right, if you fellows want to take the chances 
of breaking the law," I told them, "go ahead and arrest 
me), and I won't make you any trouble just now, but 
you will get all the trouble 3^ou want in the courts." 

I called the people around to witness that I had 
not raised a riot and then told the men to go ahead with 
the work. John Maffett's sister, who was standing in 
the door — we were right in front of his house — shouted 
out to the policemen, "Just to see you four big ele- 
phants standing there and letting that little rooster 
stand off the whole lot of you." 

Everybody laughed, but the men started at their 
chopping again. An old Southern darkey was cutting 
dov/n the last post, and a policeman ran up to him and 
ordered him to stop. Swinging his ax around his head, 
the negro cried out : 

"Ef you tries to stop me 'fore I gets done doin' 
Marse Jamie's work, I'll kill you, sho'." 

The fence was soon all down, and we piled it in the 
wagons and I brought in the mules to haul it away. 
When it v/as all out of the alley, I hurried the men to 
their trains so they could get out of town without be- 
ing arrested. Then I went to David Reid, who was 
MaflFett's attorney, and hired him in a trespass case I 
told him I was expecting, but didn't have time just then 
to explain the details. He took the case, and when he 
later heard that it was with Maflfett, he refused to act 



150 Battle in the Courts. 

for either side, which was exactly what I was after, and 
it was a big point in my favor, as he was one of the 
best lawyers in the country. 

When I got home at noon I found a note there 
telling me I was wanted at the Mayor's office. I knew 
there was trouble in store for me, so before going to 
his office, I went to the bank and arranged for Mr. 
Cramer and Mr. Patterson to be on hand to go on my 
bond. I told them to be at the Mayor's office at i 130, 
but not to let him know what they were there for. So 
they were there on pretence of looking up some city tax _ ^__ 
cases when I arrived. '; ,- 

When I walked up to the desk, I saw that the 
Mayor was mad because he had been tricked into going 
out of town, and he certainly did give me a rough haul- 
ing over the coals, but I only smiled. That seemed to 
make him more angry, and he said he would hold me 
for court under $100,000 bond for committing such a 
dastardly act. 

''That is a little strong, your honor," I told him. 
"Will you allow me to go out and secure bondsmen?" 

''No I won't," he replied. "I've got you here and 
I am going to keep you. You will have to get some 
one else to hunt bondsmen for you." 

Then I turned to Mr. Cramer and asked if he would 
go on my bond, and he said he certainly would, and 
then Mr. Patterson said he would also sign the papers. 
The Mayor looked surprised that I got bond so easily, 
but as the two men were good for much more than 
$TOO,ooo, he had to make out the paper and let me go. 



Battle in the Courts. 151 

I was not only in for riot cases, 'but I was also sued 
for trespass, and still they did not let me down. They 
kept watch for my men, and the following Saturday 
they arrested the colored driver who had hauled the 
rubbish out of the alley. They caught him coming over 
the bridge with a load of sand and took him to jail. 
They drove the mules to a livery stable. I went to 
the Mayor's office and bailed the driver out, then de- 
manded my team. The Mayor said I owed the livery- 
men 50 cents for feeding the team, but I told him that 
though the mules were worth $1,000 I would let them 
rot in the stable before I would pay it. Both he and 
his officers knew where my stable was located, and they 
had no authority in law to put the team in a livery 
barn. 

Later I demanded the team again, and was again 
refused. So on Monday morning, I entered Replevin 
against the Mayor for $2,000 damages, and replevined 
the team. The court issued the writ, and ordered all 
the parties to the suit and all the articles in question to 
be brought into court a 10 o'clock. 

One of the mules was very vicious, and when he 
was being hitched up he almost killed a man, so they 
could not get anyone to finish hooking the team to the 
wagon, and came around for my colored man. I would 
not allow him to go until they paid him $100, and they 
refused. When it was almost 10 o'clock they came 
back and paid the $100 and I allowed him to go and 
bring up the team. I was allowed to take the team 
without paying the livery bill, and the next case that 
came up — some five months later — was my damage 



152 Battle in the Coiirts. 

suit against the officers. John Scott, a friend of mine, 
was foreman of the jury. I got a verdict for $i,ooo, and 
this amount I finally received. Scott held out for 
$2,000, but finally had to compromise on half the 
amount. 

The next case was the riot case. I had every one 
of my 64 men on the witness stand, and won the case, 
but the jury must have thought I was a little bit guilty, 
as I had to pay half the costs. 

The tresspass case hung on for five years, but 
finally came to trial. I had scoured the country for 
witnesses to prove that the alley had been for years a 
public highway. On my side I had subpoenaed 168 
witnesses. The youngest one was Isaac Shaw, who 
was 66 years old, and the oldest was Mr. Harris, who 
was 105 years old. I brought four Cornplanter In- 
dians from New York State who were all more than 
100 years and had known the alley when it was a canoe 
path long before Pittsburg had been dreamed of. The 
case dragg'ed on till the fourth day of the ninth week, 
when the judges decided that a jury could not settle 
so intricate a case, and it was taken from the jury and 
decided by four judges. Again I won, but once more 
was saddled Vvdth half the costs, which were consid- 
erable. 

AVhile the suit was going on, the newspapers were 
all for my side, and one of them at the close said Fort 
Sumpter had been taken in the form of Maffett's alley 
by Ov/ens, who had thoroughly cleaned it out. 



I Meet Stanton Again. 153 

CHAPTER XXXIX. 
I Meet Stanton Again. 

In the spring of 1863 my brother-in-law, Captain 
David Parkhill, came home from the war with a broken 
leg. He stayed until he was able to walk on crutches, 
then took charge of the recruiting office in Pittsburg 
until his leg got well. Then he was given command 
of Camp Curtin at Harrisburg. One day a number 
of his friends from Pittsburg called on him at Camp 
Curtin. He went into the city with them, and before 
he got to camp he had had too much of the cup that 
cheers. While he was gone some wounded soldiers 
were brought in from Chambersburg, and when he ar- 
rived at Camp he found one of them on the operating 
table. The surgeons were preparing to cut off the 
poor fellow's leg and he was pleading with them not to 
do it. They paid no attention to him, and were going 
ahead with the operation when Captain Parkhill or- 
dered them to stop. 

"You have nothing to do with this matter," de- 
clared the chief surgeon. 

"I am in command of this camp," replied David, 
"and you cannot amputate that leg." 

With this he started to clear a way to the operat- 
ing table to protect the poor fellow, and one of the sur- 
geons pushed him back. Then the Captain drew his 
revolver and shot the surgeon in the shoulder. 

The chief surgeon promptly had David put under 
arrest and they hurried him oflf to the New York "rip- 



154 I Meet Stanton Again. 

raps." 

Curtain wired me to come to Harrisburg. 

When I learned of it, I rushed to Harrisburg to see 
Governor Curtin, with whom I was well acquainted. 
When I told him how the thing had happened so far as 
I could learn, the Governor advised me to go to see 
Secretary of War Stanton. 

"I will give you a letter to Stanton," he told me. 

"I know Secretary Stanton very well," I replied, 
"having been his roommate when he was studying law 
in Pittsburg, but I expect your letter will have an in- 
fluence with him." 

So he gave me the letter, and I hurried off to 
Washington. At Georgetown I was stopped by the 
provost guard, but when it was found that I had a let- 
ter to Stanton from Governor Curtin, a guard was sent 
with me to Washington. I went direct to the office of 
the Secretary of War, and as soon as I was announced 
to him he ordered that I be shown in. He received 
me as an old friend, but I did not bother about talking 
about old times, I was anxious that David should be 
relieved. 

As soon as the Secretary had read the letter and 
I had told him the circumstances of the arrest of Cap- 
tain Parkhill, Secretary Stanton wrote out an order for 
his release and for his return to his regiment. 

Soon after this the regiment was ordered to Vicks- 
burg, where it was very conspicuous in the defeat of 
the rebel General Briggs, for which the regiment was 
given thirty days furlough. After the furlough was 
over, the regiment was ordered to the front at Rich- 



I Meet Stanton Again. 155 

mond, and was in the battle at Fredericksburg. After 
the town was taken, the regiment went through the 
banks and robbed them of a large amount of money, 
but it was all in Confederate bills. David sent me 
$3,000 of this money, some of which I still have. 

After Captain Parkhill's return from the war he 
worked for me in this city. 

My brother Matthew was also in the army, having 
raised a company at Altoona, of which he was made 
Captain. When the company was formed the Penn- 
sylvania Railroad Company ofiered to pay the board 
of the men until they were ordered to the front, but 
after the company left, the company refused to pay. 
After Matthew's return he refused to work for the 
company for that reason, but went to work for the Ft. 
Wayne road. That road finally became financially 
embarrassed, and when he quit they owed him some 
money. 

I got judgment for him against the road, and then 
had the constable levy on an engine hitched to a train 
just pulling out of the Allegheny yards. The crew 
tried to take the train out by force, but we stood by our 
guns, and they did not dare make a move. Then they 
sent for the officials of the road, Mr. Cass, the Presi- 
dent, and Mr. Henderson, Superintendent, came over 
to see what could be done. They made all sorts of 
promises, but what I wanted was money, and at last 
they gave me a check for the full amount of the claim 
and the costs. I was afraid they would stop payment 
on the check before it could be cashed, and so I refused 
to take anything but the money. Mr. Henderson 



156 I Meet Stanton Again. 

went to the bank and got the money for me. Then 
they said they would never have anything to do with 
me again. 

But on the following Monday they left orders to 
have the Fifth avenue office papered and I was sent for. 
When I was about half through with the work Mr. 
Henderson came in. 

"What are you doing here?" he demanded. 

"Doing a little job of papering," I replied. 

"Who sent for you?" he asked. 

"Mr. Palmer," I told him, "and I am going to 
finish the job." 

He said nothing more and went out. When I got 
the job finished, I handed in my bill and was paid with- 
out a word. 

Mr. Cass held his enmity toward me all his life, 
but Mr. Henderson and I afterward became good 
friends. 

In the battle of the Wilderness my brother Mat- 
thew had the ground shot out from under him and he 
was dropped down into a hole up to his knees. He 
stood still, afraid to move for fear he v/ould bleed to 
death, believing his legs were both shot ofif just below 
the knee. He remained there till the ambulance corps 
came along gathering up the wounded. When he was 
picked up out of the hole to be put in the ambulance 
and carried to the rear, it was found that the only 
wound he sustained was the heel being- shot of¥ of one 
boot, and his heel skinned a little. That was for years 
the chief joke l^.Iatthevs^ had to tell on himself when re- 
counting his war experiences. 



Brother Robert's Trouble. 157 

CHAPTER XL. 
Brother Robert's Trouble. 

My Brother Robert, whom I brought from Balti- 
more in 1859, also enlisted in the army. He first en- 
listed in 1861 for ninety days, then for three years and 
at last for the time of the war. Before his time was 
finally out he was sent to me from Philadelphia, by a 
man who was with him, insane from a wound he had 
received in battle. I tried to get the government to 
take charge of him and care for him, and spent a great 
deal of money in the endeavor, but failed. I also tried 
to get a pension for him, but again was unsuccessful. 
I had witnesses from my brother's regiment, but that 
did no good as the special examiner sent did not report 
favorably on the case. 

When I found that the government would 'uo noth- 
ing for Robert, I tried to keep him at my house, but he 
became so bad that I could not keep him there any 
longer, so took him to Dixmont. I had to pay the 
management in advance for caring for him. In 1874, 
after he had been in Dixmont several years, money 
got pretty hard to get, and I was in a serious financial 
fix. As a result I was three days late in making one 
of the payments. 

When I went down to the asylum they took my 
money, and then I asked to be allowed to see Robert. 
I waited around for six hours for him to be brought in, 
but at last they told me he had been out in the yard and 
had run away. They said they would be sure to find 



158 Brother Robert's Trouble. 

him, and though I stayed around until evening, he was 
not found. I then went home telling the management 
that I would be back again and for them to let me 
know the next day if he was found. 

A couple of days later John Miller came to me and 
said a man locked up in the Allegheny police station 
was probably Ro'bert. I went over and found him 
there raving crazy. At first the officers would not let 
me in to see him. but at last I got in and bathed his 
head in cold water, and thus got him quieted down. I 
asked him how he came to run away, and he told mc 
the asylum management had put him out because I was 
late in bringing the money for his keeping. I then 
took him home with me again, and he seemed contend- 
ed and happy for a short time, but he later became 
worse again, and he realized the condition he was in. 
So he went to the Homeopathic Hospital, and then 
sent for me to arrange for his keeping. I arranged to 
pay the hospital $6 a week. But he was not there long 
until he became unmanageable again. 

One night the hospital manager sent for me, but 
before I arrived, they had sent Robert to the police 
station. He had become so bad that it required six 
policemen to take him away. I followed him to the 
station, and by bathing his head in cold water I soon 
had him quieted down and he went home with me 
again. It always seemed that he would be easily 
managed while I was around. He always knew me, 
and felt that I was doing my best to relieve him. But 
when I had him at home I could not be with him all the 



Brother Robert's Trouble. 159 

time and 1 would worry when I was away for fear that 
he would do something while I was not around. 

I knew Christ Braun, who kept the poor house, and 
I decided that perhaps he could take care of him. 
Braun told me to bring Robert out and he would do his 
best for him. I took him out there and he did very 
well for a couple of years, but he seemed to be break- 
ing down physically as well as mentally, and at last I 
brought him to my home again, but the excitement in 
the city was too great for him, and the noise seemed to 
greatly worry him, so I took him to the home of my 
sister, who lived in the Sciota Valley in Ohio. He 
only lived a short while after that, and his mind never 
thoroughly cleared. 

Thus even though I did not go to the war, I felt 
that I had carried as large a burden as most of those 
who did. I had two brothers and a brother-in-law in 
the army, and not one of them escaped unscathed, and 
each I had to help when they were sent home, and yet 
I could not get the government to do what all thought 
was its plain duty by Robert, who was driven insane 
through suffering and lack of care when he was wound- 
ed. He had always been a bright lad, and there was 
no taint of insanity in him before he joined the army. 
His health had always been of the best, and his trouble 
was entirely due to the Vv^ounds he received. 



160 I Try the Oil Business. 

CHAPTER XLI. 

I Try the Oil Business. 

In 1863, in the fall of the year, my wife's health 
became poor and I decided that country air would help 
her, so I sold out my contracting business and decided 
to try to make my fortune in oil. There was great 
excitement in oil then, and stories floated in of great 
fortunes to be made. I formed a partnership with my 
cousin, James B. Scott and Lucien Livingston. I 
moved to the oil country to look after the business and 
Livingston went with me to assist. We bought land 
in that section of Venango county that is now a part 
of Forest county. I built a house on the land at a 
place called Hickory and moved my family there. 

Each of the three partners put in $50,000 and we 
commenced drilling at once. At the end of the first 
year we had drilled a good many wells and had found 
no oil, so Scott got dissatisfied and left the company 
with a loss to him of $17,000. Livingston and I went 
on with the business for two years, still with poor suc- 
cess. When his father died Livingston drew out, at 
a loss of $37,300 and left me to go on with the business. 
I didn't give it up after losing so much money and I 
continued till that fall. Then, I figured up how I 
stood, and found that after paying all that I owed I 
would have just $444 left. In the few months that I 
had been going it alone in the oil business I had drilled 
seven wells, and my total loss for the few years that 







*jwC^ ,* 



hlltif 



A "Friend in Need*^ Hundreds of Times to the Author 



I Try the Oil Business. 161 

1 had tried to make my fortune in oil had cost me near- 
ly $65,000. 

I decided I had enough of that business and pre- 
pared at once to come back to Pittsburg and return to 
my old trade. I was in pretty bad financial shape, but 
knew I could always make a living at contracting and 
that was better than I seemed able to do in oil. 

I was getting along fairly well and had layed 
away a little money, but I was always doing the wrong 
thing at the wrong time, in the way of helping friends. 
I don't know how many times I had gone on notes, 
only to have them to pay, and each time I would de- 
clare that I would never do it again. But in 1874 a 
friend asked me to go on his paper to the amount of 
$17,000, and as I felt that he was perfectly good, I did 
so. It proved to be the same old story, and I had the 
amount to pay, thus putting me back almost to the 
point where I started after leaving my little forune in 
oil. 

When I got back to Pittsburg I found work rather 
slack, and I was unable to bid on the big contract be- 
cause of my crippled financial condition, so I decided 
to go to Greensburg and see what I could do. But it 
did not take me long to find out that there v/as no 
chance for me there and I returned to Pittsburg and 
did the best I could, which was not a brilliant success 
for some time. I tried various things, but could not 
make them go, and finally went back to my old trade 
again, and got along pretty well until in 1874 I en- 
dorsed the note of a friend for $17,000, which I had to 



1G2 I Try the Oil Business. 

pay, and this put me back again to where I had started 
after my venture in oil. 

One thing I did while looking for an opening after 
I came back from Greensburg was putting up fancy 
fly paper in bar*ber shops and bars, and I managed to 
scrape together quite a little money at that. I trav- 
eled around to the small cities doing this work, and had 
some peculiar experiences. I had been knocking 
around the country with indifferent success for a num- 
ber of days, and was at Parker's Landing one night 
when I met a man who was selling prize candy. That, 
is, he would place a $5 gold piece in one box, mix up 
the boxes and sell them all for fifty cents each. He 
would tell the people that whoever got the box con- 
taining the gold piece was $5 ahead, as the candy was 
worth fifty cents. 

While I was talking to him that evening he asked 
me to help him with his business and he would help me 
with mine. I agreed, and we went out on the street 
and he soon had a crowd around. He was to swing 
the package containing the money around his head 
three times, and I would know by this that that was 
the package for me to buy. When the crowd was 
thick around him, I walked up and made a purchase. 
I tried to get aAvay through the crowd, but everybody 
demanded that I open the candy. I finally consented, 
and there lay the $5. After that the crowd could not 
buy the stuff fast enough, and my friend was soon sold 
out and had to send to Pittsburg for a new stock. 

The next day, while waiting for a new stock, he 
turned in to help me dispose of the fly paper. He went 



I Try the Oil Business. 163 

into a bariber shop to get shaved, and while he was in 
the chair I dropped in with my grip in my hand. He 
glanced over me and asked me what I was doing. 

'Tutting up fly paper," I replied. 

''This shop ought to have some, for I have been 
almost eaten up by the flies while being shaved. 

The barber promptly said he would take $5 worth, 
and I put it up before I got shaved. Before I was 
through with the job Ben. Hogan came in and said he 
had been looking for some one to do a similar job for 
him for two years. I quickly closed the deal and put 
$184 worth in his bar. 

After supplying everybody in Parker's Landing, 
(I got about $360 out of the place), we went to Frank- 
lin, but neither of us did very well there. Then we 
went to Tidioutte, and we both did a good business. 

On the morning I left Tidiouette for Pittsburg, 
after my friend the candy man had started for New- 
York, I was standing in the door of the hotel, when a 
farmer came along with a wagon load of of friut. He 
He had a big raccoon tied under the wagon and a sign 
on the wagon that said : "Try your dog." Just as 
the wagon was passing the hotel a big Newfoundland 
dog ran out of a cobbler shop on the other side of the 
street and killed Mr. 'Coon at one shake. The farmer 
grew very angry, and said that was not the kind of a 
dog he wanted put against the coon. 

I walked into the cobbler shop to see if I could 
not buy the dog, for I wanted just such an animal to 
leave at home with mv wife and children. When I 



164 I Try the Odl Business. 

asked the cobbler, who was a German, if he owned the 
dog that killed the coon, he thought I was an officer. 

''Yah, I owns dot dog, but I sells him," he replied. 

So I bought the dog for $io, and when I was about 
to leave a pup that was so fat it could hardly wobble 
came into the room, and I asked the Dutchman what 
he would take for the pup. 

"Fifteen tollers." he replied. 

"All right," I said, and I handed him the money. 

When I got out into the street, he followed me and 
wanted to give me the money and keep both dogs, but 
I wouldn't go back on the bargain and brought both 
dogs home with me. The pup grew up to be most in- 
telligent, and we trained him to go to market with a 
basket and he never failed to come back with the stuflf 
w^anted. 

One day I was out hunting rabbits and when I 
got almost home the dog ran ahead as though he 
were mad, and I followed him as fast as I could run, 
fearing that he would bite someone. When I got to 
the back yard I found him standing with his front paws 
on the shoulders of as villianous looking tramp as I 
ever saw. I had to go up carefully, for fear he would 
kill the fellow, and finally got him away. Then my 
wife came to the door and told me the tramp had or- 
dered her to get some coi¥ee and a sandwich for him, 
and she was afraid of the fellow, and was doing what 
he ordered. 

I took the tram.p to the woodpile and told him to 
cut some wood as that would give him an appetite. I 
told him the harder he worked the more he could eat. 



A Queer Neighbor. 165 

He tried all sorts of excuses to get away without 
working, but I would not let up on him. I told him he 
would have to earn whatever he got to eat in that 
house. Finally I told him he might go, and if he 
didn't make tracks in a hurry I would let the dog get 
at him. And he did make tracks. I followed to see 
that he did not go to the house of one of my neighbors, 
but he never stopped running till he was out of sight. 

We were not bothered with tramps for two years 
after that. 

O 

CHAPTER XLH. 
A Queer Neighbor. 

The little while that I had lived in Greensburg 
after my return from the oil country convinced me that 
that was a better place for my family than in Pittsburg, 
and as I could attend to business in Pittsburg and go 
back and forth on the train, I decided as soon as I had 
gotten a little money ahead to buy me a home there. 
I bought just the place I wanted on the edge of town 
in 1869, and moved my family there. We found it 
very much more pleasant than living in the city, and it 
was a great relief to me at the close of the day's work 
to go away from the city and find a little home in the 
country awaiting me. 

The new home was practically in the country and 
we could keep a horse and cow and some chickens, so 
that we had all the luxuries of farm life, together with 
the comforts of a ci^"v. 



166 A Queer Neighbor. 

Pretty soon after moving into the new home, we 
got a new neighbor, and he was about the queerest 
specimen of humanity I ever ran across. He was a 
man from the West, and had married the daughter of 
a man whose farm was next to my place. The West- 
erner, whose name was Ruth, had brought a team of 
plain's ponies East with him, and he would drive them 
like mad up and down the road. He paid little atten- 
tion to bars and fences, but would break down what- 
ever was in his way and drive on. One of my dogs 
took a great dislike to the fellow and would run after 
him whenever he passed, and Ruth would take out his 
revolver and fire into the air to frighten the dog. My 
children were afraid he was trying to kill the dog and 
would run out and bring him in. One Saturday, when 
I got home, my wife said we would have to move away, 
for she feared Ruth would kill the dogs or one of the 
children. 

The following Saturday I went home earlier than 
usual and was working near the road, when Ruth came 
tearing down the road behind his wild horses. 

"Good evening," I said as he passed, but he never 
stopped, only grunted at me. The following Saturday 
I was working in the same place, when he came along, 
and stopped when I spoke to him. 

"This is a fine place, you have here." he said. 

"Yes, I think I will have a fine place when I get 
it fixed to suit me," I replied, and he passed on. 

The next Thursday was Thanksgiving, and before 
my hired man went away that morning I had him put 
six barrels of apples into the wagon. 



A Queer Neighbor. 167 

"What are you going to do with those apples?" 
asked my wife, who was in the barn getting some eggs. 

''Going to take them over to Mrs. Ruth," I told 
her. 

"Don't you do any such thing," she said. "That 
man Ruth will shoot you." 

I started off with the apples, nevertheless, and 
when I got in front of Ruth's blacksmith shop he was 
at work. When he saw me driving past, he came to 
the door. 

"The roads are pretty bad," he said, "and you will 
find them worse when you reach the county road." 

"I am not worried about the county road," I told 
him, "for I am not going any further. I brought these 
apples over to Mrs. Ruth." 

"We don't need any apples," he said. 

"I brought them to Mrs. Ruth and not to you, and 
I'll let her decide the matter," I said. "I know if she 
had more apples than she needed she would send some 
to my wife." 

So he went to the house and he helped me put the 
apples away. We went into the house and had a 
little talk. He said he thought I needed a new barn, 
and I told him I intended to build one after awhile. 
He told me there was a stone quarry back of his house 
and I could have all the stone I wanted for nothing. 
I told him I was then too busy and was away from 
home all week, but when I got ready I would be glad 
to get the stone from him. 

The following Monday I went to Washington to do 
some work on the county jail, and when I got back at 



168 A Queer Neigtibor. 

the end of the week, I found that Ruth had the stone 
hauled to the place for the foundation for the barn. 

**I thought I told you I was not ready to build that 
barn," I told him. 

''Well, the stone is there for you when ever you 
get ready to build," he replied, "and the stone and labor 
won't cost you a cent." 

Having the stone there, I had my masons come 
over and lay the foundation. Then I covered it over 
to leave it till I had time to finish the job. Then I 
went away and was gone two weeks. When I re- 
turned Ruth had the timbers for the barn hewn and 
ready to be put up. He had bought the timber from 
a neighbor for a cent a foot. I left the timbers lying 
where he pad put them and covered them up. Then I 
went to Altoona to do some work for Bell & Davis, and 
was gone about five weeks. When I got back to 
Greensburg I hardly recognized my place, for there 
was a new barn and Ruth was just finishing the roof. 
I remonstrated with him, but it did no good. He said 
that was the way they did things in the West. When 
a man needed a new building all his neighbors joined 
in to help on it, and he would pay them back in the 
sam.e way : He would not take anything for the stone 
or the work he had done, and all the new barn cost me 
was the price of the lumber put into it. 

Ruth and I became the best of friends after this, 
and every few days he would drive up and take the chil- 
dren or me out for a good time. But after awhile he 



Turning Point in Health. 169 

became tired of Greensburg, said there were too many 
people around to suit him, and he west West again. 
Thus I lost one of the best friends I ever had. 

O 



CHAPTER XLIII. 
Turning Point in Health. 

In 1867 I got the rheumatism and neuralgia so bad 
that I could not work, and my doctor advised me to go 
to the seashore for a few months. I went to Atlantic 
City, and the first morning I went into the surf. When 
I got out I was chilled through, and could hardly talk. 
I thought I was going to die right there, but after I 
got into my clothes and walked about in the warm sun 
awhile, I felt better. The next day I was going into 
the water again, but met two women who happened to 
see me the day before, and one of them spoke to me 
about it. 

"You should not go into the water in the condi- 
tion you are in," she told me. 

"My doctor advised it," I told her. 

"I don't care what the doctor said," she replied, 
"It is certainly very bad for you. 

"What is a fellow going to do?" I asked her. "I 
can't live long in this condition anyhow. 

"If I were in your condition," she said, "I would 
go to Drs. Hall and Thrall in New York. They have 
at herapeutic hospital with hot baths, and if any one 
can do you any good they can." 



170 Turning Point in Health. 

''I'll take your advice," I said. She gave me the 
address of the doctors, and I started for New York that 
afternoon. I went straight to the institute, and Dr. 
Hall met me at the door. I told him what I wanted, 
and he ordered a colored attendant to take me to a 
room where I was to lie down and rest. 

After awhile the doctor came in. He felt my 
pulse and asked me numberless questions, then told 
me I had a stong constitution, and thought I was in a 
pretty bad shae he couud cure me. 

''Are you sure you can cure me?" I asked him. 

''How much will you give me if we fix you up?" he 
asked. 

"I have $1 GOG with me, and if you cure me the 
money is yours," I told him. "What security will you 
give that you don't kill me?" 

"How much security do you want," he asked. 

"Ten thousand dollars," I replied. 

"All right, ril give bond. Do you know anyone 
in town?" he asked. 

I did not remember knowing any one in the city, 
till the names of Mr. Patterson and Mr. Atmore, whom 
I had met at Cresson a few years before, occurred to 
me, and I told him I would like them on the bond. Dr. 
Hall knew both of them, and he got them to go on the 
bond. 

That evening they gave me a lemon to suck, as my 
only supper, and as I hadn't eaten anything all day, it 
was a mighty slim supper, but as Dr. Hall had given 
bond to fix me up I was willing to do what they wanted 
me to. The following morning my breakfast consist- 



Turning Point in Health. 171 

ed of one orange, which I was told to suck, but not to 
swallow the pulp. Two colored attendants then came 
and gave me a thorough cleaning out inside, and then 
put me in a warm bath and gave me an exterior clean- 
ing. Then I was put to bed, and I slept till about 4 
p. m. When I awoke I was given another orange, and 
that was all I got to eat until the next morning, when I 
was given a little gruel without milk, but with the juice 
of a lemon squeezed over it. 

At 9 o'clock that morning I was given the same 
cleansing treatment as the morning before and a 2 
o'clock in the afternoon two colored men brought in a 
box-like affair, in which they put me, leaving only my 
head sticking out. My feet were placed in a steaming 
hot basin of water and a saucer of alcohol was placed 
under my chair and set on fire. The box was shut 
up tight, and I was given an electric battery treatment 
as v/ell. The doctor stood beside me all the time and 
held my pulse, until he thought I was properly stewed 
and electrocuted. Then I was taken out of the box 
and placed in a tub of hot water and was given the best 
scrubbing I ever had in my life. When they took me 
out of the tub they layed me on a table and rubbed me 
with Turkish towels until their arms were tired. Next 
on the program of their morning's amusement was to 
smoothe down what little skin the towels had left on 
my body. Then they went at me again with the tow- 
els for awhile, and next they put clean clothes on me 
and put me to bed. If ever I felt like a baby it was 
after that morning's performance. 



172 Turning Point in Health. 

But it did me a world of good. I was completely 
tired out and I went to sleep and slept soundly for 
hours. When I awoke I was given some fruit and a 
little later some very palatable soup, though it had no 
grease or salt in it. Still I was hungry enough to have 
eaten almost anything, hungrier than I had been in 
months. 

Every day for five days I was put through the 
stewing process, and I was feeling the good effects 
from my treatment all the time. At the end of three 
weeks I was so much better that the doctor said he be- 
lieved he could trust me to go home if I would follow 
out his instructions to the letter. He said if I would 
continue to stew myself daily, and take only such food 
as he advised I would soon be all right again. 

When I was ready to go, Dr. Hall called me into 
his office and asked me if I thought I had gotten my 
thousand dollars worth of health. (I had given him 
the money as soon as he had fixed up the bond to cure 
me.) 

''I certainly am satisfied for you to keep the 
money," I told him. 

After we had talked a little while and he had given 
me minute directions to care for myself at home, he ex- 
cused himself and went out of the room. Pretty soon 
he came back and handed me $750. 

"The balance will pay us very well for what we 
have done for you," he said, "I only accepted the $1,000 
to see if you had any confidence in us." 

I insisted that I had made a bargain with him and 
he should keep the money, but he wouldn't do it. I then 



Turning Point in Health. 173 

gave him back the bond he had given to cure me, say- 
ing that I would have made him pay the $10,000 if he 
had failed to cure me. 

He gave me a drawing of the sweat box I was to 
make and use after I came home, and I left New York, 
fully satisfied with the result of my three weeks stay. 

My home was on Wiley avenue at that time, and 
an old preacher Avho lived close by had the same trouble 
that I had had. I told him how I had been fixed up 
and he wanted to try it. I put him in the box, and he 
was nearly dead when I began the treatment on him. 
He fainted during the first treatment, and I thought 
he had died on my hands and Avas pretty badly scared; 
but he came around all right after awhile, and he in- 
sisted on continuing with the treatment. I consented 
to keep it up, and it soon began to do him a world of 
good. He had a strong constitution and he came 
through the sweating and rubbing process in fine shape, 
and was soon almost as good as a new man. My suc- 
cess with the preacher made me think I was a pretty 
good doctor, but I never tried to get any other patients. 
All I would give any one after that was advice, but 
there are so m.any people in the world with a surplus of 
advice on their minds that I never got rich disposing 
of what I had. 

Dr. Hall had made me give up smoking, drinking 
and cofifee when I was in his institute, and I found that 
all those things were injurious to me, as they undoubt- 
edly are to most men. My illness had resulted from a 
combination of those things together with the work I 
had been doing in the open air in all kinds of weather, 



174 1 Have a Strike on My Hands. 

and I decided as I could not entirely give up the work, 
1 would have to give up the dissipations, and I did. 1 
have been happier and better in health ever since 1 
gave up those foolish things which I had been taught 
were pleasures. 

O 

CHAPTER XLIV. 
I Have a Strike on i\Iy Hands. 

In the second year of the first administration of 
President Cleveland, the bricklayers in Pittsburg 
struck for $5 a da}^ and the carpenters for an eight-hour 
day at the wages they had been getting. I did not al- 
low my men to quit work, because I had some contracts 
that had to be finished, and the difference in the pay 
cost me less than to lose the contracts. I agreed with 
my men to put the difference of pay in the Dollar Sav- 
ings Bank, and if the other men won, I was to pay 
them when the strike was ended. 

I had thus kept my men working for about two 
weeks, when I was called up before the Master Build- 
ers' Association, of which I was a member, to account 
for v/hat I was paying my men. I promptly told them 
the arrangement I had made, and they appointed a 
committee to meet at tlie Builders' Exchange to inves- 
tigate the matter. 

I went to the exchange rooms at the appointed 
hour and saw two fellows sitting there, and wondered 
what business thev had there. One of them, when I 







THEO, A. MOTHERAL. 
Union Insurance Co. 



I Have a Strike on My Hands. 175 

asked, told me they were the committee to investigate 
me. When I heard their names, I knew they were not 
builders at all, but got to be members through the fact 
that their fathers had been. When I asked them 
what trade they had worked at they just said they were 
the committee. 

"When you want to inquire into my business you 
will have to appoint a committee of mechanics," I told 
them and started down stairs. 

They called me back to see the other members of 
the committee, and I went back to see what they had to 
say. They talked for a little while without seeming 
to know what they were after. 

'T thought a man had to be a master mechanic to 
be a member of this exchange," I finally said, becom- 
ing exasperated at the ignorance of the committee, 
"Since anyone can be a member who chooses, I won't 
have anything more to do with the organization." 

I then went to the secretary's desk and asked how 
much I owed. He told me I had paid a quarter in ad- 
vance. I told him to mark my name off the books, as 
I would never belong to the organization again. 

"You can't get out as easy as that," he said. "The 
organization will shut down on you, and you won't be 
able to purchase any supplies." 

"I'll go to California for supplies before I belong 
to such an organization as this," I told him, and I 
walked indignantly out of the room, and never entered 
the place again. 



176 I Have a Strike on My Hands. 

I soon found that there would be no trouble for 
me to get anything I wanted, the dealers seeming most 
anxious to sell their stuff and get the money. 

About three weeks after the affair at the Builders' 
Exchange, I was sitting in my office when a well- 
dressed gentlemanly appearing fellow came in and ask- 
ed if I were Mr. Owens. I admitted the fact, and he 
asked me if I could do all the bricklaying I could get. 
I told him I could get all the bricklayers I wanted. He 
continued to talk about the matter till the time came 
for me to keep an engagement at the Ferguson build- 
ing. I told him I had to go, and for him to come to 
see me whenever he had any work to do. I would 
guarantee to attend to it in good time. 

Then he threw off the mask, and told me he was 
sent here from Chicago by the bricklayer's union to 
settle the trouble. 

"Get right out of my office," I told him when I 
found out who he was. 

"I'll get out when I get ready," he replied. 

"You are most mightly likely to get out before 
you are ready," I said, as I stepped out of the door and 
picked up a shovel that one of the men had left when 
he went to dinner. 

Jumping back into the office I hit the fellow on 
the head and knocked him sprawling out of the door. 
I followed, intending to hit him again, but he was too 
supple for me and got away. But I was never bother- 
ed with walking delegates in my office after that affair 
became known. 



I Have a Strike on My Hands. 177 

About a week or ten days later I had some plaster- 
ing to- do on Fourth avenue and I was going down to 
look at the work, when I saw two men who were 
walking delegates going into the building. One of 
them was James McVicker, who had worked for me, 
but whom I had discharged because he was absolutely 
incompetent to do anything like good work. 

When I went into the building Jim wias on the 
scaffold and the other fellow was on the floor. I or- 
dered the man on the floor to get out of the building 
and he went. Then I told Jim to get down off that 
scaffold, and to lose lio time about it. He said he was 
only talking to one of the men, but I told him what he 
was doing was not the point, that I wanted him to get 
out. He had worked for me long enough to know that 
I meant what I said, and he started down the ladder. 

As he was climbing down, I picked up a shovel 
that was standing in a barrel of white skim and struck 
him and knocked him off the ladder. With a yell, he 
ran out, covered with skim. 

I was always perfectly willing to pay men the best 
wages, for thereby I got the 'best workmen, but I also 
meant to run m.y business without the assistance of the 
walking delegates. After those two affairs, I had 
little trouble from them. 

Shortly after this, I got the contract for cleaning 
and blueing St. Peter's Church at the corner of Dia- 
mond and Grant streets. I wanted to get the work 
done before a certain Sunday and went up to help the 
men, because it was slow work and some of the men 
were afraid, as the}^ had to work on very high ladders. 



178 I Have a Strike on My Hands. 

I was working on one of the ladders when some 
Irishmen who worked on the railroad came in. They 
had just been paid and were pretty full of whisky. They 
knelt down near the foot of my ladder in a bunch and 
began to pray. 

It was too good an opportunity for me to lose, and 
I "accidentally" dropped my bucket of blueing down 
among them. The ladder was about thirty feet high, 
and when the bucket struck the floor the stuff splashed 
all over the crowd. The Irishmen jumped and yelled, 
and ran out of the church as though the devil were pur- 
suing them. 

''Jimmie, they might have pulled the ladder out 
from under you and killed you," said one of the men at 
work. 

"li they had I would have jumped on top of one 
of them and that would have broken my fall and brok- 
en the fellow's head," I replied. "Anyhow, they are 
too cowardly to ever hurt anybody." 

ril bet those fellows didn't say their prayers for a 
year without thinking of the bucket of blueing, and 
looked around to see if another one was coming. 

The preacher and one of the committee came in 
before we quit work that evening, and I told them 
about the ''accident." I thought the preacher would 
hurt himself laughing as I described how the bucket 
landed and what the fellows looked like as the ran 
through the door of the church. 



'Only Book in the World." 179 

CHAPTER XLV. 

''Only Book in the World." 

In 1856 I came ino possession of a book which any 
man might be proud to own. It is a history of England 
by William Augustus Russel, of which all copies but 
the one I own was destroyed by order of the British 
government. The book was published in 1777, and al- 
most more curious than the book itself is its history. 

Russel was not a particular lover of the English 
government of the time, and the way he exposed the 
falacies and crimes of the rulers did not suit King 
George III and his ministers, and the book was ordered 
destroyed. But 100 copies of the book had been deliv- 
ered to the subscribers when the edict for its destruc- 
tion went forth, and as the name of the subscribers 
were printed in the back of the book it was easy for 
the government's agents to trace and destroy them. 
The books that had not been delivered were confiscated 
in the publishing house and burned. Russel was ar- 
rested, and the Encyclopedia Britanica says he was 
released after a terrn of years in London Tower, and 
died in obscurity in Scotland. But tradition says hr 
was beheaded for his attacks on the government, and 
without trial. 

But there was one book which escaped the gov- 
ernment, and that book I have owned since 1856. Dr. 
James Addison was one of the subscribers for the book, 
and he had arranged to sail for America. It so hap- 
pened that the day his copy of the history was delivered 



180 "Only Book in the World." 

to him, he took ship, and thus one, and only one, copy 
of this great book escaped. 

Dr. Addison at last located in Pittsburg, and here 
he became one of the noted early day physicians of the 
city. He lived until 1856, and after his death his effects 
were sold at auction in the settlement of the estate. 
Dr. xA-ddison and I had been friends, and I had often 
been shown the book which he prized so highly. When 
the day of the sale arrived I attended, bent on securing 
the book. One of his son-in-laws was also anxious to 
get the book, and I knew I would have trouble in se- 
curing it. So I went to the auctioneer, who was a 
friend of mine, and told him what I w^as looking for. 
He promised to help me out, and he did. 

The book was put up after the sale had been going 
on for an hour or so, and the bidding started at $5 and 
soon ran up to $16, the son-in-law of Dr. Addison and 
myself being the only bidders. At last it was knocked 
dovx'n and marked sold, then the auctioneer transferred 
his operations to another room. He called to me, and 
told me to go in and pay his clerk $17 and take the 
book, as the son-in-law had bid $16. I did and took the 
book home with me at once. 

lliat evening v/hen I reached home, I saw the 
other bidder for the book there waiting for me. He de- 
manded the book, but I declined to give it to him, tell- 
ing him that he would have to see the auctioneer as 
he had accepted my bid. He went to see the auction- 
eer, but got no satisfaction, and the book was mine. 
I went to Dr. Addison's daughter the next day and told 



''Only Book in the World." 181 

her she could have the book if she desired, but she told 
me to keep it, so I did. 

The history of the book was printed in the Pitts- 
burg Dispatch in 1858, when Aaron Foster and Daniel 
O'Neill were the proprietors of that paper, and thus it 
became known. Later the story was again printed in 
the Dispatch and it became known in England that the 
book was in existence, although the Encyclopedia 
Britanica still insists that all copies of it were destroy- 
ed. The circulation of that story in England brought 
me a visitor from across the sea. 

In 1877 ^^ Englishman, who called himself Prof. 
Stephens, and said he was from Tynne, England, came 
to Pittsburg and told me he wanted to see me in regard 
to some property left me in County Entrim, Ireland, 
I told him there were older heirs for that property than 
myself, and as it was entailed I had no claim on it, but 
Stephens was persistent and remained in Pittsburg for 
some time. I took him to my home, and he asked for 
something to read. I showed him the book case and 
told him to help himself. After looking over the rows 
of books he picked out the Russel history and began to 
read it. He remained at my place for several days, and 
spent most of his time with the history. 

After he first looked over the book, he oflfered me a 
good price for it, but I told him it was not for sale. He 
raised the amount of his offer, but I still refused. From 
one offer he went to another, until at last he asked : 

"Will you take $17,000 for the book?" 

I laughed at him. 



182 "Only Book in the World." 

''There's no use discussing the question," I told 
him. 'T won't sell the book tO' you, and you might as 
well drop the subject." 

The following morning when I was ready to come 
to town, Stephens said he would remain at the house, 
as he wanted to finish reading the history. I thought 
his manner strange, and while I was on the way to the 
depot, I got anxious about it and returned. I was 
afraid he would leave while I was in the city and would 
take the book with him. 

When I reached the house my wife told me Ste- 
phens was up in his room and had the history with him. 
I went up stairs, and there he was with the book, and 
he had the lamp burning, though it was broad day 
light. I took the book from his hands, and told him I 
wanted him to get out of my house as fast as he could. 
It looked to me as though he intended to destroy the 
book, or at least burn part of it, so that it would be 
valueless. 

I ordered my man to take Stephens in the buggy 
and take him to the depot, and I never wanted to see 
him again. I went to town and took the took with me, 
and for a time I kept it in a safe-deposit vault, until 
all danger of its being stolen passed. 

A number of my friends whom I have allowed to 
read the book have suggested to me that it ought to be 
reprinted. I took it to New York publishers, and they 
were willing to publish it, but wanted me to have it 
copyrighted in America to protect them, as its publi- 
cation would require an outlay of about $30,000. The 
Hon. John Dalzell was alwavs a friend of mine and I 



Conclusion. 183 

asked him to see what he could do about the matter. 
He introduced a bill in Congress to copyright the book, 
but the committee decided that the publication of a 
dead man's work could not be copyrighted, even by a 
special act, and I had to give it up. 

The authenticity of the history is unquestionable, 
and it has been proven by investigation by bookmen 
that the copy I have is the only one in existence. Let- 
ters have been written to book sellers and others in all 
parts of the world in an effort to trace the possibility 
of other copies, but none have been found. 

So I think I have a right to be proud of the book. 
It will never be sold, and when I die will be handed 
down to my sons, who, I hope, will take as good care 
of it as I have. 

O 



CHAPTER XLVI. 

Conclusion. 

Living in my little suburban home in Greensburg, 
I expect to round out my days. For y6 years I have 
been buf¥etted about the Avorld, and I am willing that 
my life should now run on in the most peaceful chan- 
nels. There are some things I would have different, 
but no man can not mould his life entirely as he would. 
I sigh for the friends of my youth, who have long since 
passed to their Ions: sleep, but sighing cannot bring 
them back. Most of all, I sigh for the wife who was 
taken from me in 1882 and rests In Allegheny cemetery, 



184 Conclusion. 

while beside her lay three of our children. To be sure, 
time dulls the pain of separation, yet it cannot fill the 
void that death has left in my life. 

Though I still have one daughter and two sons 
left with me, two of them have been separated from me 
by marriage, and I am all but alone in the world. My 
niece is my housekeeper, and she has been like a 
daughter to me for many years, but a father must al- 
ways long for the absent ones of his little flock. 

As to myself, my physical self, time has dealt 
kindly with me, and it would seem that I should have 
many years more of life. And I am content that it is 
so. I am not one of those who would hurry nature in 
her work of dissolution, and I am in no hurry for the 
summons of death. I had an ancestor who lived to 
pass the century mark, and with my robust constitution 
and my perfect hygenic manner of living, it would 
seem that I might also live to so great an age. 

Cares and worries I have put behind me. I no 
longer struggle for wealth, but I am content with the 
modest fortune that has come to me, and care for no 
more than will help me to end my days in comfort. Sur- 
rounded though I am by the sons of men I watched 
grow rich in the early days of Pittsburg's great pros- 
perity, I have no thought of envy in my heart. I have 
tried to make the best of my life, looking more to 
health and happiness than to the riches "that are more 
a burden than a help. If I have failed in aught that 
should have been expected from my opportunities, T 
have no regrets, as I have done what few runaway 
bovs have done, and withal have alwavs cared for the 



Conclusion. 185 

'less fortunate members of my family to the best of my 
ability. The love for my family has been the chief 
guiding motive of my whole life. Perhaps I should 
have little credit for that, because that is one of the 
things nature gave me at my birth. 

And when my time comes to be laid to rest beside 
my wife, I hope it can be said that though hordes of 
friends proceed me to the Great Beyond, not an enemy 
is left behind and none will be on the other side to greet 
me. 



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